Data has become the new currency in business. Companies that know how to gather and interpret data and use their findings effectively will have a better foothold in their respective markets.
There is significant value in preserving historical and real-time data. They offer insights on improving business performance, cutting costs, finding new income streams, and more. However, at the heels of this realization should be the acknowledgment that preventing data loss is just as crucial as gathering and storing data.
Cloud data backup is the best solution for data loss prevention today. Read on for more information on how it works, its benefits, and tips on how to backup data on the cloud.
Defining Cloud Data Backup
Cloud data backup is a service that allows organizations to store files, databases, applications, and software on a remote server offsite. The purpose of remote backup storage is to preserve valuable and operations-critical data in the event that on-site servers are compromised by a cyber attack or physically damaged by human error, vandalism, electronic failure, or catastrophic events like a flood, fire, earthquake, or tornado.
Cloud data backup must be differentiated from cloud storage, too. They are often used interchangeably but refer to different technologies and uses.
- Cloud backup – Protects against data loss or damage by maintaining a separate copy of your database on a remote, offsite server. Its primary purpose is to recover data rather than provide extra storage space.
- Cloud storage – Provides an alternative storage venue that doesn’t require buying new hardware and maintaining the device onsite. Its main purpose is to free up local drives and storage devices and allow your team access to information 24/7.
Cloud Backup for Businesses: Why Do You Need It?
Investing in robust and secure cloud support is an investment that will pay off in the long run. As mentioned above, natural calamities and cyber attacks are threats businesses face daily.
If just one calamitous incident or hacking attempt corrupts onsite computers and servers, business-critical information can disappear, be ransomed, get stolen, or be manipulated to be unusable.
Here are some of the other potential consequences of losing data:
- Lawsuits from customers whose personal information have been stolen
- Legal and financial sanctions from government agencies and industry regulatory organizations
- Financial losses from legal proceedings
- Financial losses from having your trade secrets stolen
- Loss of trust from your customers and the public
- Loss of trust and confidence in your brand
Investing in cloud backup is a preemptive move to protect not only your data but also your entire business operations.
The Advantages of Cloud Backup for Businesses
- Guarantees disaster recovery
As your business grows, so does the need for technology that will help you prevent losing crucial data to cyber thieves, calamity, hardware failure, or unfortunate human errors. Cloud backup for businesses provides an additional layer of protection for your data: by storing backups offsite, there’s a lower risk of information being damaged or disappearing for good.
- Keeps data safe, secure, and accessible
Cloud backup services use encryptions and distribute data on redundant servers to protect your data against hardware failure. Should a server go down for any reason, recovery is still possible because of the redundancies in other backup servers.
People authorized to access business data can review, store, and retrieve the information from the backup cloud support.
- Automates data backup for your convenience
Modern cloud backup services can be automated to routinely back-up data every so often. You can schedule to back up your servers on weekends and days that would result in the least disruption to your daily business operations. Having the ability to automate server backups in your office whenever necessary should make it easier to manage and protect your business’s valuable databases.
- Cost-effective
The beauty of cloud backup is it’s not a high maintenance practice, nor does it require constant monitoring and management (thanks to automation). Since you’re not buying new hardware, you don’t have to allocate funds for their maintenance or assign IT staff to look after them ‘round the clock. Instead, you’ll be offloading the infrastructure costs and responsibilities to your service provider.
Here are some of the cost savings cloud data backup offers:
- No need for expensive hard drivers and onsite servers.
- No need to rent a bigger office to house servers and other computer hardware onsite.
- You can reduce the number of paid hours your IT team spends looking after backup servers or repairing infected hardware.
- Pay an affordable weekly, monthly, bi-annual, or annual fee for complete backup and cloud support.
How to Backup Data on the Cloud
Here is a standard procedure on how to backup data on the cloud:
Step 1: Choose a cloud backup provider and choose a plan that matches your needs and budget.
Step 2: Install the necessary software.
Step 3: Open the program or application and configure it according to your needs (i.e., how often to back-up your data)
Step 4: Choose which files, servers, and other data sources to create backup copies of.
Step 5: Check your access to the backup data after the first cycle.
Step 6: Let the system run automatically on the next scheduled backup.
Cloud Data Backup Best Practices
Make the most of your cloud infrastructure by observing the following cloud data backup best practices:
- Define your Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) to align with your disaster recovery strategy.
- RPO – The maximum time between the last backup update and the time the data got lost, stolen, or corrupted.
- RTO – The maximum acceptable time it takes to recover lost data and be up and running again after a disaster or disruption.
- Categorize business data into the following, and apply data backup strategies that are appropriate for them:
- Existentially critical data – Data that will end your company if lost, stolen, or destroyed.
- Mission/Operations critical data – Data that is crucial for employees to do their jobs. The company can lose revenue or experience production delays if this data is compromised.
- Performance enhancing data – Data that help improve performance, but will have limited impact on the business if compromised.
- Schedule data backups frequently to ensure maximum data protection. You’ll want your backup date to be as updated as possible, so if your servers fail today, you won’t be burdened because you have to work with data from two months ago.
- The frequency of your backups should match the speed and volume of your data collection and recording. For example, a daily backup schedule would be good if you process a large amount of data daily, i.e., you are a fast-growing online retail store with hundreds of new customer accounts made each week.
- Maximize the automation feature. It is understandable if you want to make it an SOP for a senior IT officer to oversee server backups, but if that’s not possible, learn to trust the technology and the process. After all, you paid for the service to make your life easier.
- Choose cloud data backups with physical servers far from your geographic location.
- Encrypt the copies of your data.
- Include endpoints in your backup plan. Endpoints are your employees’ mobile devices to access company data, like company-issued laptops, tablets, and mobile phones.
You should be able to identify more cloud data backup best practices as cybersecurity threats and other risks become more apparent. Developing a disaster recovery strategy will also uncover other concerns about preserving data integrity, so be prepared to incorporate those into your backup SOPs.
How IT Consulting Helps Establish Cloud Support
If all of this is new to you or is a bit overwhelming, we recommend consulting IT experts. Doing so will help you better understand cloud data backup technology and identify the potential benefits to your organization.
IT consulting experts can provide much-needed clarity on backup technology and its role in disaster recovery. More importantly, they can help growing businesses determine backup services that are just right for their present needs and scalable to accommodate future growth.
Choose the Best IT Support in Massachusetts
The benefits of cloud backup go beyond what we discuss in this article. If you want to explore them further, contact M&H Consulting, a respected company for IT consulting in Massachusetts.
We provide comprehensive IT solutions and managed IT services for many industries like law, real estate, manufacturing, medical and healthcare, automotive, food and restaurant, and more. Clients call us when they have an IT emergency or need long-term IT support in Massachusetts.
We also offer onsite IT consulting in Massachusetts to businesses that may be too small to have a full-time IT department but big enough to need the services and advice of an IT expert. Our consultants can seamlessly integrate within your organization and fill the gaps in your IT without draining your resources.
Consult our IT experts about cloud data backup and other growth-oriented services today.
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