Is Your Data Safe?

Imagine this situation happening: At night, your office building burns down. Everybody is fine, but your computers and servers are destroyed.

Would your data be safe? Would you be able to recover it?

If your business is like many other small businesses, then the answer is probably “no”.

And that’s a big deal.

Your data is important. It’s a crucial part of operating your business.

In this day and age, you can’t operate your business without your technology. Your systems need to be working properly to run your business. If your systems are down and you can’t access your data, you can’t do business.

It’s as simple as that.

Many Businesses Have Faulty Backup Systems

Unfortunately, many small businesses do not back their data up securely. They use faulty backup systems that give them a false sense of security, but won’t actually protect them when disaster strikes.

And you know what the worst part is?

They might not even know it!

They might think their data is being backed up securely. But unbeknownst to them, their backup scenario has some serious flaws.

And by the time they find out about this, it’s already too late. Their systems are down. Their data is lost. And they don’t know what to do next.

If they’re lucky, they might be able to recover what’s left of their data. But that might take days.

In the meantime, they’re lost without access to their critical systems and information. And they are losing money as a result of it, because they can’t run their businesses the way they need.

Don’t let the same thing happen to you.

Your data might be at risk.

Make sure you get a good backup scenario in place.

There’s A Lot That Could Go Wrong:

Backing up your data the right way is critically important.

Because there’s a LOT that could go wrong:

Your hardware might fail.
You might lose or misplace your tapes or hard drives (or get them stolen).
Your office building might catch on fire.
Your systems might get infected by malware or viruses, destroying your data.

Each of these scenarios could get you in serious trouble if you don’t have a good backup solution.

You might have to wait a few days until your data is recovered, and be unable to run your business in the meantime. Or even worse – your data might be lost for good.

No matter which way you look at it, you can’t operate without your data.

If you don’t have a good backup and disaster recovery scenario in place, you are putting the livelihood of your business at risk.

Just because you’ve been fine so far doesn’t mean that nothing will go wrong in the future. When something does happen to your data, it’s a big deal. And by the time you find out about it, it’s usually too late to recover from it.

That’s why you must take preventive action, and make sure your data is safe before something goes wrong.

What’s Your Backup Scenario?

To keep your data safe, you need to come up with a good backup scenario. You need a solution that protects you from a wide range of problems and emergencies that might occur.

The security of your backup solution depends on the following factors:

The backup method you use.
The frequency of your backups.
The location where you keep your backups.
How long you can go without access to your data or systems.
How long it would take you to recover your data from your backup solutions.

Let me give you an example.

One thing a lot of small companies do is back up their data to tapes or external hard drives. They assume that doing that will keep it safe in case of emergencies in case their main server goes down.

But that’s not necessarily the case.

The question is how long they can actually operate without access to their server.

Let’s say something goes wrong with their server. They have a hardware malfunctioning, and their motherboard fails.

They might think they’re safe, because their data is backed up. But until they’ve actually restored their server, they will not be able to use that data or have access to their systems.

And it takes more than a day to replace a motherboard and get their server up and running again.

It might take them 3 to 4 days to get it replaced. That’s 3 to 4 days where they would not be able to access their data – or run their business the way they’re used to.

What would happen to your business if this happens? Can you be without your data and systems for 3 to 4 days?

If not, then you might be in trouble. Your backup scenario might not be feasible. You do not have a way to recover if something goes wrong.

How To Protect Your Data At All Times

So, what can you do to keep your data safe?

You need a backup solution that will keep your data safe at all times.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when designing your backup solution:

1. Back up Your Data

The biggest mistake a lot of companies make is that they don’t back up their data in the first place. You’d be surprised by how many companies don’t have this essential system in place.

You need to back up your data – period.

There are many different ways how you could do this. You could back up your data to physical tapes, external hard drives, internal servers, to the cloud, or stream it to a remote location.

Each solution has advantages and disadvantages. Find out what works best for your needs.

2. Make Sure You Back Your Data Up Frequently

There’s nothing worse than recovering your data from a backup, and losing a week’s worth of work because your backup is a week old.

Whatever the solution is that you choose, make sure that your data gets backed up frequently.

That way, when something goes wrong, you’ll always have recent backups. You’ll never lose any work, because your backups are always up to date.

You can do this manually at the end of each day. Or have it done automatically for you, and have your data instantly streamed to a remote backup, as you go about your day-to-day business.

3 Always Store Your Data In At Least Two Locations

Make sure your data is always stored in at least two different locations.

If you keep your backups at the same location as your regular systems, then you open yourself up for serious risk.

When that location burns down, not only does your data go down in flames, but your backups will burn up as well. You’ll lose all your data in one disastrous event.

Your backups should really be off-site – in another physical location from your regular systems. That way, if something goes wrong, you’ll always have a physical copy of your data elsewhere.

4. Create A Remotely Replicated Work Environment

Recovering your data from your backups might take some time. Depending on the problem, it might take you several days to restore your data and have your systems back up and running.

If your business depends on access to your data and systems, that might not be fast enough for you.

In that case, it would be smart to replicate your work environment in a remote location.

That way, you’d have an entire copy of your server running in a remote location at all times. Your data will be streamed to that location instantaneously to make sure your backups are always up to date.

And when something does go wrong with your systems, you’d be able to access the backups remotely. At all times you’ll be able to access all your systems, and all your data at that secure remote location, through a secure connection from wherever you want.

Work can go on as usual, without interruptions. And you wouldn’t even notice something went wrong.

We Can Help You Keep Your Data Safe

Those are some suggestions on how you could keep your data safe. But you can also have someone else do this for you and save yourself the time of setting it up yourself.

That’s why we’re here to help.

We know how important your data is for your business.

And we know how confusing it can be to make sure that you have the best systems in place to keep your data safe and your systems operating smoothly.

We have a solution that can help.

We’ve come up with the bulletproof Business Continuity Program, that will keep your systems (and your business) up and running, no matter what happens.

Over the last 13 years, we’ve helped countless local business in the Ohio Valley area keep their data safe, and solved their IT-problems for them.

We can do the same for you.