Let’s start with the basics first. The moment you read the title, you may have thought: ‘This isn’t for me. My data is backed up well enough and I have no problems with it. I can access it whenever I want. I’m good.’

Great.

But let’s explore this a bit more.

Because you know what we’ve seen in our 15+ years of IT experience?

Most companies have a backup problem that they may or may not know is there!

So let’s start with diagnosing if your company has a data backup problem that you may be blissfully unaware of.

How many of these 4 do you check?

• You don’t have a backup system – because…you’ve never needed one. You’ve never lost data and it’s unlikely you’ll ever lose data or be attacked by malware.

• You have a backup procedure in place. But it is not well thought out, was put in place a long time ago, you don’t know when the scheduled backups are and you know it is flawed in some way.

• You have a system and detailed backup procedures but do not test daily for the effectiveness of the backup, or test whether you can actually recover the data when needed. You just trust you will get your data whenever disaster strikes.

• You have old technology. Or you’re using a costly system that has more features that you need or isn’t customised to suit your business’s needs.

So how many of these are true for you?

The Worst Offenders: Types Of Manual Backup Systems
If you’re relying on manual backup, let the sirens and alarms ring right this moment. Any backup system that depends on manual work, ie, humans is the worst option.

Why?

Because where humans are, errors are. If you’re taking your backups on…

• Usb drives
• Removable hard drives
• Tape drives

…then you need a professional, competent, cloud backup system that is run by trained technicians.

Saving your data on usb drives etc will not recover your data the way you need it because if you did your last backup 3 months, and you lose your files today, then 3 months of data is still gone. What you backed up 3 months ago will barely be of help to you.

Not to mention frequent staff changes and simple forgetfulness that manual backup relies on.

Pros And Cons Of Each System

Certainly, manual backup is cheap. Perhaps the cheapest option.
And a good one especially if the data is taken off site by a person.

However, let’s be honest — manual backup is

• Ineffective
• Prone to hardware failure
• There’s no testing of data recovery
• Relies on a human to take the data off site
• Ransomware can infect the backup device
• Relying on a person to perform the back is a bad idea, always. Especially when there are better options available.

Not to mention the device itself. USB thumb drives are:

• Fragile
• Can simply get lost
• Data can be corrupted
• Can be infected with ransomware

While tape drives are more reliable but they are bulky and relatively slow.

But they also still rely on a human to perform the backup, which let’s be honest, is forgotten nearly every time it needs to be done.

The Safest Data Backup Solution For Your Business

The safest solution if you want to protect your business data and customers’ data is to automate the backup system and remove the points of failure.

The 3-2-1 backup strategy can help with this.

A 3-2-1 backup strategy means having three copies of the data in at least two different locations with one of those locations being off site.

Sounds like a lot of work?

It isn’t.

A cloud backup system addresses all these problems. Without manual dependency. It is automated. The business data is replicated to an onsite storage device (usually a separate hard drive or NAS- network access storage), and replicated several times a day to off-site cloud storage.

• This keeps your backup up-to-date with your latest documents.
• Recovery in the case of a disaster, system failure, ransomware or malware attack is very fast, either for a single deleted document, or an entire ransomware infected business.
• Cloud backups have dramatically reduced in price in recent years and are now easily accessible to small businesses. In fact, in most cases, they tend to be your cheaper option.

Implementing cloud data backup can help bolster your business’s data protection strategy without increasing the workload of information technology (IT) staff.

Cloud backup services are usually customisable, which means you only pay for what you need and get. This elasticity of course has a direct impact on your cost savings.

You no longer need to do regular backups internally by your team because cloud backup is automated.

How To Get Started?
Auckland-based Revolution IT’s team is installing cloud backup solutions in every new healthcare practice owr small business we work with.

For more than 30 years, Revolution IT has been delivering professional and secure Cloud backup and disaster recovery solutions for businesses in Auckland and throughout New Zealand.

Managed and monitored by Revolution IT’s trained engineers, our enterprise-level Cloud Backup-as-a-service (BaaS) is safe, secure, personalised, and ultra-fast. All without the cost and complexity of managing your own infrastructure.

In business, reputation and trust, once lost are hard, nearly impossible to recover. And once you lose your data or your customers’ data, you lose your brand’s reputation and trust.

By helping you backup and recover your data, we help with your integrity of your business, and additionally with saving your time and money.

Don’t leave your data to chance.

You can connect with our team to discuss a customised solution for you. Write to us at [email protected].