Data Backup: The Bad, Good, Better, Best, and Redundant

It's good to backup your data, but can you have too much of a good thing? While this may be the case for several enjoyable activities like partying and buffets, this isn't the case with data backup. In fact, the more layers of data backup you have, the more secure you will be. How good is your data backup solution?

Bad: Zero Data Backup
If you don't have any data backup solution in place, then you're not alone. In a recent survey of small businesses, only 13% of respondents believed their business to be susceptible to a disaster resulting in data loss. This means there are many companies risking it because they don't see the value of backing up.

A business not backing up their data is missing out on a really good thing. Backing up data isn't a frivolous expense, and no business is immune to a disaster causing data loss. Quite the opposite actually, data backup is essential to the continuity of your business. Whatever your reason is for not backing up, understand that it's not worth the risk of losing your data and going out of business. Statistics show that small businesses hit with data loss have a 40% chance of never reopening.

Good: A Local Backup Solution
Having a local data backup solution in place is better than having no backup solution at all. Whether you're backing up your data using tape, or you save your work to an external hard drive, this puts you in a much better position to survive a data loss disaster than being totally unprepared. Having a local backup solution is a good thing, but it's not the best thing.

There are many disasters that can destroy your entire office building, like a fire, flood, earthquake, hurricane, and several other disasters that you've seen played out in high-budget movies. What makes disasters like these so devastating is that they will destroy your local backed up copies along with your servers and your office building. Therefore, while backing up your data locally is good enough to protect you from some disasters; it's not good enough to protect you from every disaster.

Better: Backing Up to the Cloud
A cloud-based backup solution is a much better way to backup your data because it keeps your files safe if your office is destroyed and you lose your servers and your local backup solution. When backing up your data to the cloud, it will be stored safely in a data center and you can rest assured that your files will be safe from any disaster striking the walls of your business. Additionally, backing up to the cloud is an automatic process that's much more convenient than changing out and storing tape every day.

Best: Backing Up to Multiple Data Centers
As good as it is to backup your data with a cloud-based solution, backing up to just one data center is not good enough because you are basically transferring your risk from one egg basket to another. Granted, backing up to one data center is 1,000 times better than not backing up at all, but information stored in a data center is still at the same risk as your office when it comes to disasters big enough to take out a building like a fire or earthquake.

In light of major disasters like this, you need to consider the location of the data center you're backing up to. What happens if your data is backed up to a data center on the other side of town and a tornado takes out both your office and the data center? Or what if you're backing up to a data center in your region and a hurricane takes out power throughout your entire state like it did in New Jersey with Hurricane Sandy in 2012? The best way to backup your data to the cloud is with a solution that uses multiple data centers located in different parts of the country.

Redundant (The Ultimate Solution): Disaster Recovery
When it comes to your data, you need to protect it. When businesses want to take their data seriously, they rely on a Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) solution. It's more than just backup - it's peace of mind. This backup solution takes incremental backups of your files throughout the day, and then sends the data off to a secure data center. Depending on the severity of the disaster, you can quickly restore data directly from the device, pull your files from the data center (if your backup solution gets damaged), or have a new backup device with all of your data overnighted so you can plug it into an ad-hoc network while you figure out your next steps. This guarantees your data and the fastest recovery times humanly possible. Oh, and speaking of recovery times, a Backup and DIsaster Recovery solution will also be able to keep your business running if your server goes down, as it can act as a spare and get you back online within minutes compared to hours.

Securing your data by backing it up to multiple data centers is exactly what you get with Directive's Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) solution, and we can work with you to add as much redundancy to your backup plan as you think you need. In addition to backing up to the cloud, BDR also gives you the ability to quickly recover your lost data by virtualizing it to a terminal. This is the most efficient way to keep operations running in the event of a disaster, which means you don't have to panic about going out of business when a disaster strikes. To protect your company's data with the best data backup solution on the market, give us a call at 607.433.2200.