The importance of data backups has been known for decades, yet we continue to acquire customers who come to us needing to recover lost data. That’s unfortunate, because there are now many options for ensure data—and even entire systems—are backed up properly. Here is a list of factors to weigh in developing a strategy.
- Content: What needs to be backed up? Some firms want a complete backup for compliance (or convenience), while others wish to backup only critical data. Consider data stored on mobile devices or the cloud in your calculations. Cloud-based storage tends to hold large volumes of important data and should be backed up regularly.
- Loss Tolerance: How much data you can afford to lose? Most backup programs and services take periodic “snapshots,” but the time between varies from a few minutes to once a day or even longer.
- Outage Tolerance: How long can your business and employees wait for restoration of data without a significant, negative impact?
- Storage: Will you backup to the cloud or use a backup appliance (or a designated backup server)? If an on-site appliance/server, how will you back it up? On-site backups are worthless if your office is damaged or inaccessible due to disaster.
- Management: Who will manage your backups—storage allocations, security, permissions, and more? If data is lost, how will you restore it: manually or automatically? What schedule will you use to test backups and perform test restores?
If you don’t have a strategy or can’t answer these questions confidently, the experts at Carmichael Consulting can facilitate the planning process and even setup and manage your backup systems for you. To learn more, call 678-719-9671, email [email protected], or visit www.carmichaelconsulting.net.
