Today, backup is more than just backup. Data and systems have greater significance to our competitive ability, image, and survival and we also have an increased demand for accessibility.
Creating a backup needs to be easy and it must work without great effort. It needs to be easy to recreate data and there must be an ability to scale it available. Just a few years ago, many companies would outsource their backup, yet today, more and more are bringing the data back to their own datacenter, sometimes combined with a copy kept by a supplier or stored in the cloud.
The reason for this is a greater requirement for functionality than would normally be available through a traditional remote backup. One example of this is the ability to quickly recover data in the event of an attack or if mother nature has a bad day and provides lightning strikes or flooding. Furthermore, many desire a greater degree of automation.
Important Considerations
The requirements for backup are different for everyone. Which systems, applications, and data do you need to protect? What are your business priorities, your Business Impact Assessment:
- The amount of time it may take in order for a system, application, or data to be recreated.
- What is the order of priority for the systems, applications, and data when it comes to recreating the data?
- How much data can you “handle” losing?
Many companies make a backup of critical servers every hour in order to minimize the risk of data loss significantly. Others want to be able to recreate an entire environment. If you have data stored with a cloud provider, that data is also included in the solution. For how long do you want the data stored and where do you want, or are you permitted, to store it? There may be legal reasons as to why a certain solution is not an option.
These are all important considerations which our consultants will guide you through. From the first meeting until the task is complete, our consultants will provide valuable insight and, in the end, provide you with security and better results based on accurate estimates and pricing as well as accurate plans of execution.
The Responsibility of Management
There are many tools available to stop an attack. The backup is the last resort. The feedback is clear, when the topic falls upon where the responsibility lies. The responsibility must be anchored with management. It cannot be disputed that all questions about the security of the company must be answered at the top and not at the bottom.
Do You Trust Your Backup?
Being able to recreate your data is the core of the recovery process. Several companies handle backup by moving data into vaults and large containers having only one key. The challenge is that they do not know if the backup they are locking away is usable. However, it is extremely expensive to gamble on hardware if its sole purpose is to make the backup unchangeable. It is overkill and not very flexible. This is where the test aspect becomes key:
- The backup must be able to be recreated from the entire infrastructure – you must have a complete dataset in-house
- The backup cannot be part of your AD
- You need an additional backup from the most recent 20-30 days which is heavily encrypted
Very few companies test their backup ongoingly and practice a complete restore. However, it is important to know if there is enough bandwidth to perform a restore in no time. The challenge is that many do not know the quality of their backup, they only know it exists.
Do you trust your backup? Contact us for a non-binding dialogue about your backup and IT security.
Three Delivery Models
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DO IT YourselfOrder hardware and licenses provided with counseling from our specialists and your personal team and allow our global logistics platform to do the rest. -
We DO IT TogetherWith a broad range of services and experienced consultants we collaborate with you when you need competent resources.
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Let us DO ITWith our managed services, we will tailor a service agreement that fits your specific needs and delivers a stable and secure operations. Every day.
