According to the Enterprise Strategy Group, backup and recovery capabilities rank among the top IT priorities for organizations of all sizes. The result is increased demand for business continuity (BC) solutions that help businesses keep operations running in the face of disaster. Unplanned downtime, data loss and security breach are serious considerations for the majority of businesses.
Despite this prioritization on backup and recovery, 66% of organizations who have lost data in the cloud have their recovery operations fail. While many businesses have a plan in place, it can often lack a holistic and comprehensive approach, and won’t uncover gaps in their strategy until it’s too late. In the digital age, it’s more and more difficult for businesses to operate without access to their data, and any loss of information could have catastrophic effects on personnel productivity and the bottom line.
Companies are turning to much more robust and holistic systems with quicker recovery times when access is lost. To understand how well your business is protected, ask yourself these five key questions:
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How quickly can lost data be restored from backup?
Restore time equates to downtime, which can negatively impact your company’s bottom line. In addition to financial losses, consider the missed opportunities, time, and drop in productivity that would occur given a data loss. It is likely that this cost is far greater than the cost of implementing a comprehensive backup plan.
Your backup solution should restore data in a time frame that meets or exceeds your business requirements. With today’s technology downtime should be minimal if not entirely avoidable.
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Does your company have a low tolerance to longer “data access outages” and/or would you like to minimize the time your company may be without its data?
Consider a solution that offers “image level” as opposed to “file-level” backups. A file-level solution ensures that files are safe, but in the event of a disaster or critical outage, servers may have to be built from scratch. This can add days or weeks to recovery time. An image-level solution allows technicians to restore systems in their entirety (including the operating system) to new hardware. Not only does this reduce recovery time, but it reduces labor costs significantly. When deciding between image or file level backups you’ll need to again consider the cost of downtime. When pursuing an image-level back up you can reduce risk and mitigate the impact of an outage drastically.
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Does the solution have a provision for offsite storage of backups?
Not even the best on-site solutions will be of any use in the event of a fire or other disaster that destroys both source data and backup copies. You need to consider where you house our backups, if you have only on-premise servers with backups, there is greater risk that your backups can be destroyed. Considering a cloud-based backup solution, that continuously captures your environment to reduce risk and improve the cost efficiency of your solution.
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Is the backup solution automated or manual?
Many backup solutions require manual processes such as changing tapes or rotating external hard drives. When the individual responsible for this process is away from the office or simply forgets to perform their task, the backup is compromised. Ensure your solution is as automated as possible.
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Are there any gaps in your backup solution?
Some companies have so much data that a complete backup isn’t possible with their outdated solution. For example, if a company is using tapes, the tapes may not be large enough or may require too much time to backup all the data. Solutions or configurations that are not backing up an entire server may be missing important or critical data. Other solutions that only backup once a day or once every few days expose companies to high-cost risks due to even minor system failures or accidental deletions.
As for SysGen, we use Datto in our own operations and highly recommend it to our clients. Here’s how it works:
Want to learn more? Check out our Datto’s article titled: Data Backup and Recovery Methods
Are you interested in levelling up your business’s backup strategy? Connect with SysGen today. Learn more about SysGen’s cloud offering, cybersecurity services, managed security, and Digital Advisory team by clicking here.
