Every business owner needs to have a plan in place to backup their company’s data. Ignoring this basic task can lead to some pretty grim consequences, like a data-loss causing disaster. Fortunately, when it comes to backing up your data, you’ve got options.

Having a Local Backup Solution
Going with a local backup solution is an okay option that will alleviate much of the risk associated with not having any backup solution. Two popular local backup solutions are backing up with tape and using external hard drives. Having an extra copy of your files on premise is a good start, but it won’t provide sure protection from data loss.

The shortcoming of depending on a local backup solution is seen when a major disaster like a fire, earthquake, or flood, destroys your PCs/servers along with your backup. In a situation like this, your local backup solution just failed and there's a high likelihood that you'll have to scramble just to stay in business. Plus, don't forget about other disasters like malware, user error, and hardware malfunctions that can hit your local backup solution and cause major damage.

Backing Up to the Cloud
The advantage of backing up data to the cloud is that it's stored in a data center off-site. This means if there's ever a major disaster that takes components of your IT infrastructure offline, you can rest assured that your data is safely stored off-site. Plus, backing up to the cloud is a much more convenient way to back up data than having to store and replace tapes every day.

Backing Up to Multiple Data Centers
Before you sign up for a cloud-backup service, ask your cloud-service provider about how many data centers will be storing your information. Essentially, the more locations your data is stored in means the more secure it will be. For example, if your data is only backed up to one data center, then it could be lost if a natural disaster strikes that single location.

Full Disaster Recovery
For ultimate protection, there’s the complete Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) solution. A solution like this backs up your data regularly throughout the day and stores files incrementally to a local device. This allows for only the files that are changed or edited to be backed up, instead of wasting time and resources backing up files that aren’t. Then, the BDR sends all of your data off to a data center for secure storage, so it can be accessed anytime you need it.

Depending on the severity of the disaster, you can either restore directly from the device, pull files from the data center, or in the worst case scenario, have a new backup device sent overnight so you can set up an ad-hoc network to get you by while you figure out your next move.

To help you better evaluate your data backup needs, consider the following questions:

• Do you have a policy and solution that allows you to routinely test your backup?
• Are email inboxes backed up?
• Are backups done automatically throughout the day?
• Do you backup all of your data, as opposed to some of it?
• Could you get by with JUST the data recovered from your backup?

For assistance with any and all of your company’s data backup needs, give Britek Solutions a call today at (954) 560-8145.

Is your business still using tape as its primary method of data backup? If so, you could be missing out on a more reliable, less time-consuming alternative. Image-based, or “snapshot” backup solutions continue to be the optimal way to guarantee the continuity of your organization’s data infrastructure, and we’ll explain why.

But first, let’s talk about why tape backup isn’t good enough in today’s business environment. Storing data backups on magnetic tape reels has long been a standard procedure, but compared to more modern data backup practices, tape has fallen short of today’s expectations. Tape backups are resource-intensive, and as such, they need to be performed at the end of the workday to avoid slowing down the network. Furthermore, due to how resource-intensive tape backups are, they can only be taken once--meaning that you could potentially lose up to a day’s worth of productivity and accumulated data.

The Difference
Image-based backup is vastly more efficient and more manageable than traditional tape backup. Image-based backup lets your business take a “snapshot” of your organization’s data, which is then sent to several locations either on or off-site for safe, secure storage. These snapshots record data that’s been changed recently rather than take a whole backup like how tape would work; these smaller backup sessions are less resource-intensive and can be performed more frequently during the day--even as often as every 15 minutes.

Perhaps the greatest boon of using an image-based backup system is the fact that it’s automatic and relies less on users to be effective. Your team doesn’t need to set and run the backup at the end of each workday; you can set them to run automatically. Of course, you still have to check the backups and make sure that they work properly, but the fact remains that you have backups taken and ready to go.

When it comes to backup and disaster recovery, your business can’t cut any corners, and doing so could become a problem down the road. Even the slightest disaster like a power outage could lead to major data loss. That’s not to mention other common disasters that could cost your business capital in more ways than just data loss. Hardware failure, floods, and fires could lead to not just data loss, but expensive hardware replacements and damage to your IT budget. The damage caused by the resulting downtime is also a major problem, and one which absolutely cannot be ignored.

Britek Solutions can equip your business with a backup and disaster recovery solution that’s specifically designed to work for your organization. Depending on your needs, you can back up your data to several off-site locations, including a secure data center and in the cloud for rapid data recovery. Furthermore, in the event of a disaster, you can restore your backups directly to the BDR device, and it can act as a temporary server while you work out the finer details of replacing your hardware. All in all, it’s the ideal solution for a small business that relies on data to keep operations going.

To learn more, reach out to us at (954) 560-8145.