World Backup Day 2021: The Importance of a Strong Business Continuity Plan

World Backup Day is a reminder to all of us about the importance of protecting our business-critical data and documents, and why it should always be a priority.

Your digital information is precious and by not backing up where necessary, you run the risk of losing more than just files; your business can suffer immensely from the loss of crucial data. Unfortunately, we live in a world filled with unpredictability – whether that’s natural disasters, human error or ill-willed opportunists.

How can data be lost?

There can be a myriad of ways you can lose your data, for example:

• Your device (laptop, tablet, mobile phone etc.) is damaged due to flooding, fires etc.
• Theft of devices
• Hard drive crashes
• Employees deleting data, whether intentional or accidental
• Cyber attacks such as malware, ransomware etc. 

Protecting your data requires you to establish a robust data backup system. Whether this means on the cloud or alternative systems, you need to back up your business data regularly.

What do you need to back up?

Backing up important data includes much more than sensitive files and folders; you also need to back up your OS, applications and even configurations. You never know what might happen to your machine, so in the event of a catastrophic failure or a physical loss of the device, it is crucial that you are fully prepared.

Cloud Storage: A Cost-Effective, Scalable Storage Solution

Cloud backups are an off-site backup solution that are stored on remote services and accessed via the internet. This is a viable solution if you’re concerned about losing data to physical threats, such as flooding or theft.

Opting for a public cloud infrastructure will take the manual work out of your hands; the vendor will deal with local administration, hardware problems, and data recovery issues that may occur. Being on the cloud also provides you with the additional benefit of encrypting the data that’s stored for extra security in the event of any kind of cyberattack that may occur.

It’s worth noting that you will likely need to subscribe to a specific storage capacity in the vendor’s data centre. However, this also means it’s a more scalable option than a local data backup; so if you accumulate lots of sensitive data, it’s worth considering cloud storage to keep up with it.

In a nutshell, cloud storage is an ideal backup solution because:

• It keeps data safe in a virtual space; regardless of where your devices may move or what happens to them, cloud storage will always be where you left it
• It has strong cybersecurity support, due to third party vendors updates and patching
• It’s a scalable option; if you find you need more storage, you can get it quickly
• It improves collaboration between users who will be able to access data wherever they are 

Alternative storage methods

Local data backup

A local data backup is storage on disks, tapes, external hard drive, USB or any other physical media. Depending on the size of what you’re looking to backup, you may need additional media (such as disks, tapes, external hard drives etc.) to facilitate larger backups. This will need to be considered regularly and budgeted for, so may not be ideal for those of you who may need to backup high volumes of data unexpectedly during periods of growth. Also, due to the nature of local data backup, there may be a risk of unexpected corruption too.

Hybrid Backup

Hybrid backup is a higher cost option for storage, because backup combines both local and remote storage. Cloud storage is integrated with local backup, ensuring that in the event of a disaster, critical data isn’t lost. While the hybrid backup automatically backs up to the cloud, the local backup is performed using a shared local network drive or a networked attached storage (NAS) device. If the local backup is destroyed for any reason, there’s still data on the cloud that can be recovered. This can be a little more complex to manage with your IT team.

Talk to TSG about disaster recovery

Having a strong business continuity plan is essential to safeguarding your organisation. Every organisation requires something different, and our experts are best placed to advise on the right solution to fit your requirements. If you’re concerned about the safety of your business data, get in touch with our disaster recovery experts today to discuss the options available to you.