Keeping your business data backed up is one of the most important parts of any business continuity plan. Data loss means downtime, costs recreating lost files, and for some companies, it can mean the end of their business if they don’t have a file backup as a safeguard. Using a backup solution should be common practice for all business’ data, but is cloud or on-premise backup solutions right for your business?
60% of small businesses have to close their doors within 6 months of a data loss incident, and 58% of them aren’t properly prepared to restore data after a loss.
Whether you self-manage your backups or use managed IT services to take care of it for you, it’s something that’s vital to the health and well being of your company and vital to have done properly.
Some companies think they’re safe, but when they go to retrieve their backup after catastrophic data loss, they realize it’s not all there or has been damaged. It could be a website server that gets hit with malware, but since the backup is also on that server, it’s infected too.
Or you could suffer one of these common backup mistakes:
- Backups stalling and never being checked
- Backups running out of space
- A hardware or software conflict that causes data not to be saved
- An employee accidentally turning off their device backup
- Only backing up on-premise then suffering physical damage to your office
What’s the best way to manage your computer and server backups? There are typically two main options, on-premise or cloud backup. Which one is better?
Actually both, and we’ll tell you why and give you a few software options to consider.
Why You Need Both an On-Premise and Cloud Backup
It’s not unusual for a company to feel that one backup is good enough. But that’s not the case in today’s world, were nearly all a company’s files are digital and data loss can be devastating.
With a 77% increase in the first half of 2020. It’s become a climate of not if a cyberattack or data loss incident will occur, but when.
Using both an on-premise and cloud-based backup ensure you have your business covered no matter what.
An on-premise backup helps you in the case of:
- Needing data recovery but don’t have an internet connection to reach a cloud backup
- In case of an outage or server crash at your cloud backup service provider
A cloud backup helps you in the case of:
- A fire, flood, or other natural disaster damages your office and contents
- Malware that infects your network, including your local server and its backup contents
Backup Options to Cover All Your Needs
When looking for local and remote cloud backup solutions, here are some considerations.
Local, On-Premise Backups
There are two main options when backing up locally, tape or disk.
LTO (Linear Tape-Open) is an open-format tape storage. This offers high capacity for lots of data, which makes it popular for daily backups and backups requiring retention of lots of long-term data.
Some of the benefits of LTO include:
- Can store up to 30TB of data on a single tape
- One of the least expensive options for long-term data storage
- Less prone to breakdowns or moving parts issues
- When properly cared for, tapes can last up to 30 years.
NAS (Network-Attached Storage) is a disk, rather than tape-based. It includes one or more servers with dedicated disks that are physically connected on-premise to your devices. The scalability and “always-on” nature make it a popular option for onsite data backups.
Some of the benefits of NAS include:
- Faster file recovery
- Deduplication, which allows you to remove duplicate data to free up space
- Easy for small businesses to work with
- Can add storage space to a local computer, boosting efficiency
Hybrid Platforms Offering Both On-Premise Backup & Cloud Backup Options
Cloud backups are often using a similar disk-based system, only the server is in their data centre, rather than your office, keeping it safely off-premise in case there’s any physical damage at your office or even an extended power outage.
There are multiple cloud backup services to choose from, here are two good ones that give you the option to use them locally or in the cloud.
Put a Backup System in Place that Has Your Back
Don’t leave your backup plan on the back burner, then get caught with major data loss when an unexpected event occurs. We The IT Team can set up a solid backup strategy for you that includes local and cloud options to ensure your data is completely backed up and instantly recoverable no matter what.
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