March 31st—is World Backup Day, an annual reminder to think about how well you’re protecting your data. Is your business prepared to prevent—or recover from—a data loss disaster? And while you’re at it, have you taken steps to back up your personal information as well?
There Are Lots of Aspects to Properly Backing Up Your Data
There’s a Formula to Follow to Get Reliable Backups
First, any business that commits to backing up its data must do so properly. By today’s standards, this means that a company needs to abide by a widely accepted and stress-tested approach.
This approach is known as the 3-2-1 Backup Rule:
- Maintain at least three copies of your data
- This data is stored in at least two different types of storage media
- At least one copy of your data is stored offsite, ideally in the cloud
This combination of behaviors can prevent truly catastrophic data loss, as long as the backup is tested to ensure it works properly. It is not unheard of for businesses to discover that their backups were failing after they were needed.
Just imagine the feeling in your stomach if you think you have a nightly backup, only to find out it’s been overwriting itself continuously—leaving you with no recoverable version of the data you lost days earlier.
This is not uncommon, unfortunately, and many businesses have suffered from exactly this issue.
To avoid these pitfalls, automate your backups to occur regularly, retain multiple versions, and test them often. That way, if an issue is accidentally carried forward in newer backups, you still have a clean copy to restore.
Backups Are Also a Security Tool
A solid backup strategy can be utilized to mitigate some unpleasant impacts of cybersecurity threats. Consider ransomware, which blocks you from accessing your own data. Having a regularly updated backup, with multiple versions on hand allows you to restore access without having to consider paying a ransom.
What happens if—a laptop workstation or mobile device—is lost or stolen? While you’ll still have some problems to overcome, having all your data backed up prevents its potential loss if the device you use to access it is no longer accessible.
Maintaining a backup helps you in such disasters by giving you something to fall back on if your data is impacted by whatever event you suffer from.
Don’t Forget Your Personal Data
While most of our focus is on business, personal data is just as important to protect. All those family photos, important documents, or creative projects shouldn’t be left vulnerable. Applying the same 3-2-1 Backup Rule at home goes a long way toward keeping your memories and personal records safe. After all, data is data, whether it belongs to a company or an individual.
Every Day Should Be World Backup Day
While March 31st is the official backup reminder, you should be thinking about data backups every day. We do.
We specialize in crafting customized, automated backup solutions to help you maintain business continuity and secure your data.
If you’re already relying on us for your business backup, rest assured that we proactively monitor and regularly test to verify it remains effective.
If you are not relying on us yet, consider this a reminder to prepare a backup, or review your current one for comprehensiveness, not only this World Backup Day but regularly throughout the year, ensuring all your data is being saved redundantly and securely.
If you are unsure about the status of or strategy of your backup we are more than happy to take a look and help you address it. Call us at 304-781-3410.
Make every day World Backup Day… because the safety of your data is always worth the effort.
