70% of small business workstations are not backed up. However, businesses continue to store important documents locally.
Local and Network Backups
One of the easiest ways to create backups of business data is to simply store copies of important files on hard drives, tape drives or other storage devices connected to your systems or network. Copying files to external hard drives or USB flash drives may seem like an effective way of ensuring backups are available locally when you need them, but what if they fell into the wrong hands? An article I the Guardian from 2016 tells how over 1000 government laptops and USB drives lost/stolen - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/dec/21/at-least-1000-government-laptops-and-flash-drives-reported-missing-since-2015 .
With any good data recovery plan, keeping local copies of backups is essential. However, due to risks associated with physical disasters, ransomware, theft, and other threats, keeping local backups should never be the only facet of your strategy. In addition to keeping up-to-date local backups of your files and data, you should always store at least one copy offsite as is required with the 3-2-1 rule (i.e. an offsite backup server or in the cloud.)
Cloud Backups
These days, it seems that wherever you turn, there is talk or news about businesses migrating to the cloud (or running software and systems remotely via the Internet.) and, backup solutions are no exception.
In short, cloud backups are secure offsite copies of data that are stored on remote servers and accessed via an Internet connection. Cloud backups are an excellent option for providing additional redundancy and security for businesses that want to ensure their important data is available if and when onsite or physical data disasters strike.
Cloud Backups and Online File Storage Are Not the Same
Many businesses use Dropbox, Google Drive, and other online storage services to store backup copies of important files. And, while these types of services are okay for storing and sharing a few files, be aware of limitations such as limited file versioning, lack of automated backups, limited backup folders, etc. which prevent them from being true cloud backups. A true cloud backup service enables you to create automated backups of complete systems (not just the files) and store as many versions of backups as you need.
If you’re tired of managing backups with a mix of products for servers, PC’s, and laptops dealing with complex configurations, and staying on top of ever-changing storage requirements, perhaps our new solution BBT Backup Documents might be of interest to you. Please contact us for more information.
