Backup Strategies to Prevent Data Loss
We live in a digital age where data has become one of the most valuable commodities in the world. Businesses collect huge volumes of data every day from their customers, and this data plays a critical role in their day-to-day operations. If business organisations happen to lose their data under any circumstance, the consequences can be quite catastrophic.
This is the harsh reality of today’s digital business landscape. Businesses can experience data loss in many ways, ranging from natural disasters to cyberattacks. Should you suffer an unexpected data loss, your competitive advantage lies in how quickly you can get your operations up and running without experiencing major downtime.
In this blog, we’ll take a brief look at the various dangers to business data and how you can prevent them with the right backup.
Why Do You Need Data Backup?
Before we look at the different channels of security and disaster recovery, you need to know why your business requires data backup services. Businesses commonly encounter the following data security threats to data in their everyday operations.
Cyberattacks: As technology evolves, cyberattacks continue to evolve as well. The growing threat of ransomware is a testament to that. According to the latest Verizon report, 27 percent of malware incidents can be attributed to ransomware attacks. While antivirus programs can certainly offer protection, businesses need to think about what might happen in case of an unavoidable security breach and eventual data loss when formulating a data security strategy.
Hardware issues: Mishaps originating from hardware issues play a major role in business data loss. With traditional data storage methods, data is stored in a physical location on hard drives and backup appliances. Any hardware issues arising in these devices can pose a serious threat to your valuable data.
Human errors: Human errors still play a major role in data loss. According to Verizon, as much as 30 percent of data loss incidents are caused by internal actors. Whilst we may not want to admit it, these errors are almost always preventable. Typically, we see unsuspecting and seemingly small things like your password practices can cause disastrous problems for a business.
Natural disasters: Natural disasters pose a big threat to the traditional form of data storage and security. Could you bounce back if these disasters caught you off guard and wiped out your company’s data.
All these factors indicate that data loss can happen to any organization. These factors are all irrespective of their size or the security precautions they take. What you need is a solid data backup solution to make sure that your lost data is not completely unrecoverable.
How to Back Up Your Data
As you understand the importance of data backup, it’s inevitable that certain questions may spring to mind – What is the best way to store data? How many copies should you take?
With regards to the best way of storing data, both cloud backup and on-site backup appliances need to be considered. This is because both have their own advantages and limitations. On-storage devices are faster, giving organisations full control over their data. However, they are prone to physical mishaps and hardware issues. In contrast, Cloud-based backup is not vulnerable to physical disasters but requires a lot of bandwidth to backup large files.
The ideal backup strategy is one that combines both these approaches, with multiple copies stored in different locations. When it comes to your security and disaster recovery, you need to consider the 3-2-1 rule. This should simultaneously answer your questions on what the right approach to data backup is, and the number of copies that need to be made.
As per this rule, it is prudent to have at least three copies of data – one production copy and two backup copies on two different media (internal hard drive and removable storage media) along with one off-site copy (cloud) for disaster recovery. Newer variations of this rule suggest having at least two copies (3-2-2 rule) on the cloud depending on the importance of your data. Ultimately, the more copies you make, the higher your chances of recovery after a loss.
Best Practices for Data Backup
While incorporating an effective backup strategy, you need to implement the following best practices to limit data loss:
Increase frequency: In the current technological landscape, digitally-run businesses are required to back up their data multiple times a day. Doing it once a day, is no longer sufficient, especially with the number of threats gunning for your data.
Use cloud backup: The Cloud has become an indispensable component of data backup in this digital age. Cloud backup comes with a multitude of benefits such as easy recovery, easy scalability, better cost efficiency and more.
Use the power of automation: Automation has become a game changer with regards to various IT tasks and backup is no exception. When you automate your disaster recovery process, you can bounce back from serious disasters. This also allows you to continue business operations without suffering too much downtime.
Determine your retention span: Retaining all data backup versions forever is not a feasible solution for most small businesses. Due to this, you need to determine the duration for which you will retain your data. This requirement will vary based on your industry, needs and compliance regulations. You need to come up with a solution that ticks all parameters. We can help with this.
To Sum Up...
Backup data should be a part of every organization’s business strategy, irrespective of its size, location or industry. Threats to business data are very real and are happening at an alarming rate. In this scenario, online data backup solutions could be the preventative measure that saves your business when disaster strikes.
Talk to the Step Fwd IT team today so we can help you zero in on a backup and disaster recovery plan that’s tailor-made for you.
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