What if the Worst Happens
Quick Facts about Data Backups
49% of businesses reported data loss in the last two years.
63% of small businesses have no daily backup.
Hardware failure & human error accounts for 78% of all data loss.
In 2007 GE money lost a backup tape containing 650,000 customers credit-card information.
What to look for in a backup solution?
Functionality:
Your backup Functionality should grow with your business. Its functionality should always meet your needs.
Security:
Your data backup should be secure. The data your business is backing up is confidential and should remain confidential. It should be for only your eyes.
Offsite:
Your data backup should always be safe and secure offsite. You should have to hide it, or worry about dropping, scratching or getting it wet.
Available:
Your data backup should always be available to you at any moment. In case of any emergency you need to be able to access, move and be back up and running.
It’s something we never talk about but it is one of the most important things that should be in the immediate business plan. What happens if your server or laptop crashes and you lose everything? This is probably the most severe instance, but it does happen (and more often than you think). Do you know that in the small and medium business environment 73% of all businesses the suffer critical data loss fail to recover from the experience. Its amazing that small businesses take the risk of no having appropriate data backup solutions.
The Top Causes
We have created this graph to highlight where the major failures in data integrity lies. Did you know that over half portable hard drives fail in the first year. Sure you get the warranty, but you lose all the data. Do you really want to put your business survivability into a $100 portable drive?At some point you will lose critical information through human error, software malfunction or hardware error its what steps you put in place that will see not only your data but your business survive.
What to look for in Online Backup
- Reliable Software:Data backups are too important to trust to chance. You need to make sure that the data backup software you deploy works well on the OS platforms. Many automated offsite backup services run best on Microsoft while others perform well on Linux. The only way to really know is to test a service’s application before rolling it out on production systems.
- Storage Plans That Meet Your Needs:Some offsite data backup services bill by the gigabyte. That’s fine, there’s no trouble but that would make it harder for you to budget and you would need to keep an eye on the size of the backups. Other service providers though sell accounts with specific storage limits (50GB, 100GB, etc.) and flat fees. Those plans work well and simplify budgeting, at least until organizations unexpectedly exceed their storage limits. Look for service providers with storage limits or pricing plans that meet your organization’s needs while also proving flexible. Some remote data backup servives makes it easy (just a few clicks) to upgrade from a 4GB account to a 10GB plan (or from a 10GB to a 30GB account). Clients need only pay the difference between the two storage plans (not start from scratch)
- In-Depth Reporting:A leading benefit of automated backup services is peace of mind. Knowing critical data is automatically being backed up offsite is more than just a relief. With critical data safely secured, you can move on to addressing other tasks. IT professionals, though, are typically (and rightfully so) a skeptical crowd. So they want, or require, more than just a promise that critical data is being backed up; they need confirmation.
- Simple Recovery:When hard disks fail or users accidentally delete files, or other systems errors occur; IT professionals need to be able to recover files quickly. Conduct tests of backup providers’ recovery functions to confirm that file recovery is simple, fast, and secure. In other words, make sure it’s easy for you to recover data that’s been backed up offsite but that unauthorized parties won’t be able to do the same.
- Incremental Backups:Several backup providers support the ability to maintain multiple file versions. The ability to go back and reference several versions of a particular file can prove quite valuable. When the data backup operations runs, files from the previous backup (such as those backed up the night before) are written over. Most organization’s data backup occur daily (at night); with such a frequent data backup, little time exists to discover errors (such as an accountant realizing he or she entered incorrect data in a budget file). If such errors aren’t caught within a day, of course, the budget file with the correct data will be written over by the file containing errors that night. With versioning file systems, several versions (or historical copies) of the same file can be maintained to recover from just such mistakes. Look for this feature. It can bail out hurried users who mistakenly corrupt good data.
- Physical Server Access:Back up providers should be able to physically access their servers to gain access to your data if required. Your data should not be hosted in China, India or for as much as you know Nigeria.