Since the days of the 3.5-inch floppy disc the mantra about backing up data has been repeated often. Never has this been more important than in the modern world where businesses are processing higher quantities of data than ever before.
What is a backup?
A backup in its simplest form is a copy of the data held on your business’ devices. This includes all images, files, access rights and software. It is a snapshot of your business data at a specific point in time which can then be recovered at a later date as required.
Why is it important to do regular backups?
Regardless of how secure you think your data is there is always a risk, which could be in the form of cyber threats from third-party criminals or disgruntled employees, malware or ransomware, natural disasters like fire, flood or earthquakes, or even a power outage which damages servers and stored data.
A backup provides you with a copy, so should the data be lost for whatever reason, it can be recovered using the backup. Obviously the more regularly you do backups the more up to date the data will be when recovered.
Four backup solutions to consider
You should never rely on one backup solution, as you potentially leave your data vulnerable, so here we discuss four backup solutions for your business data.
Onsite Backup Solution
The most cost-effective backup solution is to have copies of your data stored on your business premises, which could be in a computer room or an on-site data centre depending on the size of your business. Should a data breach, file corruption or a hardware failure affect your business, recovering the backup is quick and easy and all access to the storage is normally via an internal local area network (LAN).
However, should there be a problem on the premises itself (fire, theft or flood for example) your backups could be destroyed along with your original data. There is also the additional threat of ransomware which infects your devices including your servers which could mean your backups are encrypted along with your live data. Another thing to consider when contemplating onsite storage is the ongoing cost of hardware as well as its maintenance.
Offsite Backup Solution
This solution is to have your data backups stored offsite, meaning should anything happen to your on-site network your data is protected and can be recovered. This offsite location could be another premises for your organisation, or a third-party data centre. This solution is easily scalable meaning it can grow along with your business.
Sometimes with offsite storage, especially large banks of data recovery could be slow and therefore for some data types, onsite storage may be a preferred option. Security is also a major concern when using third-party servers as you need to be sure your data is secure, in order to be compliant with data governance procedures.
Online or Cloud Backup Solution
The most common modern solution is for data backups to be stored on third-party servers via the cloud. If data recovery is necessary, this can be accessed by anyone with an internet connection regardless of location.
The obvious disadvantage to a cloud backup is the need for an internet connection as without it the data is inaccessible. Additionally, in order to do large data backups fast bandwidth is required which is not something that is available country wide. Generally, it is fast for recovering small amounts of data but can take some time if there is a lot of data to recover.
Hyper-V Backup Solutions
This is a solution for organisations with virtual servers. Hyper-V is a specific backup solution for small to medium business with virtual machines which enables a backup to be carried out from the host machine with no need for software within the virtual machine (VM). It is easy to migrate storage from one VM to another.
The cons of the Hyper-V backup solution are that if the original operating system crashes then all the virtual machines (including the backups) will crash too.
What next?
If you are not certain whether your backup solutions are secure or the right choice for your business, why not contact SupportWise for a chat. We can talk you through the options and help secure your data against cyber threats and data loss.