The world of technology has grown exponentially over the last decade and, as we head into a new year and new decade, we don’t see this trend changing anytime soon. As a result you and your employees are likely having to adapt and adapt quickly to the ever-changing technological landscape of your business and the businesses or customers you serve.
Unfortunately, the frequent and necessity of change in this technologically-driven world can have some highly negative results. To combat this, backup and disaster recovery has become a critical aspect of any IT system or process in order to avoid catastrophic losses, but even this need has changed with the technology it’s meant to protect.
Backup and Disaster Recovery is Essential
In the past, backup and disaster recovery was more about protecting yourself against something like a natural disaster, which wasn’t a huge concern or risk, or recovering a file that was deleted. It also managed to protect against threats of a larger scale that thankfully, tended to be a rare event. Today, it’s a different story. Backup and disaster recovery is essential to the survival of your business. Your business more than likely occurs entirely through technology. This type of protection ensures that you’ll never lose the essential data and files that your business needs to operate!
Nowadays, cyberattacks are a growing threat. In fact, data shows that hackers attack every 39 seconds and these attacks can result in the loss of millions of dollars. Ransomware is a common form of cyberattack that can cause a serious headache if you’re not adequately prepared. It occurs as a result of spyware or virus that makes its way onto your network to encrypt your files and hold them “ransom” until you pay for their release.
The good news is that, with an advanced backup and recovery plan in place, you and your business will always be able to recover from an attack with little downtime and minimal loss to the critical information your business requires to operate.
The Building Blocks of a Successful Backup & Recovery Plan
There are six key aspects you should look for and expect in any backup and recovery strategy.
1. You Need a Comprehensive Strategy
Backup and recovery, as explained previously, is critical to any modern business. The thing is, they’re only as useful as they are detailed. If you’re backup and recovery plan doesn’t provide detailed data coverage, then it won’t deliver the data you need in the event of a disaster.
In addition, few businesses have a dedicated IT department that can manage separate backup, recovery and business continuity solutions. As a result, it’s critical to have a solution that provides key functionality that is seamlessly integrated. A combination of on-premises and cloud-based services offer the best total protection for businesses of all sizes, especially small businesses.
2. You Need a Strategy that’s Easy to Use and Understand
Disaster can strike at any moment. Having a solution or system in place that’s easy to use and quick to implement will save you hours of frustration during an already stressful time.
Additionally, if the system in place prevents or slows down your employee’s day to day processes, then, ultimately, the plan in place will cost you in the long run.
Solutions that offer intelligent user interfaces and are also supported by a vast network of managed service providers are often the best choices.
3. You Need a Strategy that Truly Recovers Your Data
Downtime as a result of an attack or data loss can seriously cost you. Instant recovery capabilities can remedy this!
If your hardware systems fail, it’s important that you can rely users can rely on instant recovery – at least enough to keep your business operational.
A quality backup and recovery strategy will be able to convert a backup into a running system in no time.
4. You Need a Strategy that’s Consistent
It makes sense that quicker and more frequent backups limit data loss, right? So, of you’re choosing a reliable solution, it’s important to choose one that performs frequent backups. An ideal solution is incremental backup – where the technology adds what you’ve changed or deleted, rather than backing up the entire volume of data repeatedly. This speeds up the overall process and requires less storage overall.
5. You Need a Strategy that’s Affordable
Having a backup and recovery strategy in place is critical to your business, but it’s not always something you want to spend money on – until there’s a problem. With limited financial and technical resources, choosing a backup solution can be frustration. Don’t make the mistake of choosing a less expensive solution that provides less functionality. Cheaper solutions like this
may seem like the right call in the moment, but down the road it can be quite costly when the solution doesn’t deliver. Look for a strategy that’s cost effective and affordable, but won’t require sacrificing significant features and capabilities!
6. You Need a Strategy that’s Scalable
Just as our technological world continues to grow, so should your business! With growth comes the creation of more and more data. Because of this, it’s important to select a strategy that can work with businesses of all sizes and can provide services that meet your needs as your business continues to evolve.
Your Business’s Security Matters & Time is of the Essence
The most important thing to note as I conclude is that your business is at risk and you need to protect it. By having a comprehensive backup and recovery strategy in place, you’ll be ready for whatever the future holds and you won’t have to worry about losing vital information.
With a backup and recovery plan, you’ll be able to proactively reduce downtime and avoid expensive data losses. But don’t wait. Find a plan today – before it’s too late!
