Data backups in the world of Web-based applications.
One of the major benefits often claimed of Web-based applications is that they reduce the burden on the user when it comes to maintaining the software, but also any corresponding data. However, this is not the case. When using a service such as Gmail or Google Docs & Spreadsheets, it becomes essential to make backups of any data that is stored remotely. There is a Lifehacker article describing how to back up your data for several of Google’s Web-based applications.
After reading through that article, I got a better idea as to how bad the situation actually is. The data management aspect of Web-based applications is a real sore point, with far too much overhead. Storing data locally, and manipulating it with traditional desktop software, is probably a far better solution.
The first problem I noticed when reading the article is that there’s no unified way of retrieving your data. It should be possible, I would expect, to retrieve all of your data from all of the Google services you use, all at once. That is, a tarball of all of your data is generated, and you can easily download it. Unfortunately, that appears not to be the case. You currently have to go through several different procedures depending on the application in question, and even then you may not necessarily be able to create a backup of all of the data that you’d like to save.
Beyond that, you still need to come up with a policy for backing up the data once you have it on your system. There are numerous options for this, of course. Some people may prefer to upload it to another remote server. Others may burn it to CD or DVD, and store the disc somewhere safe. Some just keep it on their system’s hard drive and hope for the best. Many people may use a combination of different methods.
So when using a Web-based application, you not only have to worry about being able to retrieve all of the data you’d like to back up, but you still have to deal with the issues surrounding the backing up of the data once you do have it locally. Compared to just directly backing up files that are stored locally, such as those generated and manipulated by typical desktop applications, the Web-based approach becomes more tedious, error-prone and time-consuming. That’s just not beneficial.