Threats To Your Data
Fire and Natural Disasters
Fire can be catastrophic to your business. You have your office equipment insured and it can be replaced. What about your data?
And if a fire is not devastating enough, what do firefighters use to quench the flames? That’s right, water. So now your systems are burnt and soggy; not a good combination for your data. Offsite backups can provide what your insurance agent cannot: an exact replacement of what was lost.
Similar to fire, any number of natural disasters can ruin your data assets as well, including floods, tornadoes and hurricanes.
Hardware and Software Failure
Hard disks fail. Disk controllers fail. Power supplies fail or the power goes out completely. Often, software does not properly handle unexpected input. These are all examples of unpredictable occurrences that can ruin your data assets.
Operator Error
Even in the best of situations, mistakes happen. People unintentionally erase data because they misunderstand cryptic prompts from their software or they are not paying attention to what they are doing.
Sabotage
This may sound dramatic, but do not take lightly the damage that can be done by a disgruntled employee.
Viruses And Other Malicious Software
There are hundreds of virus strains and other malicious programs just waiting to take advantage of unsuspecting computer users. Backups of your data can be a safety net against these and all the other threats mentioned above.
Backups vs. Archives
A backup is a duplicate of data. An archive is data as it changes over time. Both are copies of data but an archive allows you to go back to review data as it was months or years ago. Several backups may be combined to form an archive.
Classes Of Backups
We categorize backup strategies into four classes. Which class of backup do you have?
Better-Than-Nothing
If you have some sort of periodic backup routine, you fall into this category, at a minimum.
Good
A Good backup routine captures all mission-critical data at least once per week and stores it on medium other than the primary medium (a second hard disk, or tape drive for example).
Better
An even Better routine backs up all information for the organization daily, including workstations. Also, backups are archived and sent to an off-site secure storage facility at least once per month and kept for a number of years.
Best
The Best backup routine has all of the above plus daily backups to an off-site location and archives to multiple secure facilities.
Disaster Recovery
No amount of disaster recovery planning can prevent data loss but it can greatly ease the pain of getting your organization back to an operational state.
Get in touch with Stellar IT Solutions today to discuss the options available to you to protect one of your most valuable assets: your data.