Your company data is the lifeblood of your business. Your data may be in the cloud, but that does not mean it is being backed up.
Every day, businesses gather and process massive amounts of data from their customers, and that data is essential for daily operations. Losing it for any reason can have devastating consequences. Data loss can occur in many ways, from natural disasters to cyberattacks, and if you face an unexpected loss, your competitive edge depends on how fast you can resume operations without significant downtime.
In this article we will briefly explore the various risks to business data and how you can prevent them with the right backup strategy. We will also look at the different methods of backing up data and the benefits of using a reliable business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) solution.
Before weighing the methods, it helps to understand the threats. Businesses face these data-security hazards in their daily operations, and any one of them can put your information out of reach.
As technology advances, attacks grow more sophisticated, and ransomware is proof of that. According to the latest Verizon report, 27% of malware incidents are caused by ransomware. Antivirus tools help, but you must plan for the breach that gets through.
Floods, fire, earthquakes, and the like are a major hazard to conventional data storage. Do you have the resources to recover if one of these strikes unexpectedly and destroys your company's data?
Hardware failure is a common source of data loss. With traditional methods, data lives in a physical location on hard drives and backup appliances, and any issue affecting those devices can jeopardize it.
People are still a significant factor. According to Verizon, up to 30% of data-loss incidents involve internal actors, anything from weak password habits to falling for a phishing scam.
As you realize the significance of backup, you may wonder what the optimal way to store data is and how many backups you should keep. The answer involves both cloud backup and on-site appliances. On-site storage is quicker and gives you full authority over your data, but it is susceptible to physical accidents and hardware problems. Cloud-based backup is immune to natural disasters, but it needs plenty of bandwidth to back up large files.
The best strategy blends both methods, with multiple backups stored in different places. That means one working copy plus two backup copies on two different media, along with one off-site copy in the cloud. Newer versions of the rule recommend keeping at least two copies in the cloud (the 3-2-2 rule) depending on the value of your data. Ultimately, the more backups you have, the higher your chances of recovery after a loss.
In simple terms, backup is just the process of making copies of your files and storing them. But the real goal is to get your business back on track as fast as possible after an unexpected disaster, which is why an efficient strategy is tied to business continuity: the ability of your organization to resume normal operations quickly after a loss.
When you think about continuity, you have to think in terms of Recovery Time Objective (RTO), the maximum time an application can be offline without affecting the business, and Recovery Point Objective (RPO), the maximum amount of data that can be lost without damaging it. A good BCDR solution significantly reduces both RTO and RPO, lets you estimate recovery after a disaster, cuts downtime and the revenue losses that come with it, lowers disruption to vital processes, protects your reputation, and lets you tailor disaster recovery to your specific requirements.
When you adopt an effective backup strategy, these guidelines keep data loss to a minimum.
Digital businesses need to back up several times a day. Doing it once at the end of work hours is not enough, especially given the number of risks targeting your data around the clock.
The cloud has become essential to modern backup, offering easy recovery, easy scalability, better cost efficiency, and more, without tying your only copy to a single physical location.
Automation is a game changer for backup. When you automate your disaster-recovery process, you can recover from serious incidents and resume operations without losing too much time.
Keeping every version forever is not practical for most small businesses. Decide how long you will retain data based on your industry, your needs, and the compliance regulations you answer to.
A well-thought-out backup plan should be part of every organization's business strategy, regardless of size, location, or industry. The threats are very real and occurring at a high rate, and a solid plan could be the measure that saves your business. If you have not developed a BCDR plan to protect your company data, now is the time. Reach out for a chat. We can help.
Cloud Matrix IT is a managed IT and technology consulting firm specializing in proactive IT management for small and medium-sized businesses. IT PROTECT is a comprehensive technology strategy and cybersecurity platform that helps your business save time, reduce costs, and stay protected with a fully managed 24/7/365 SOC+ platform led by cybersecurity professionals. Yes, even weekends and holidays.
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