Make Way for World Backup Day

Make Way for World Backup Day

As the first quarter of 2019 ends, we celebrate World Backup Day on March 31.  Why is this important?  It’s important because if you lose some or all your data, your business could be at risk for a host of problems.  No one wants to hear the stuttering voice of Porky Pig exclaiming “That’s all folks!” as you close your business due to poor choices about data protection.

World Backup Day was created to raise awareness and encourage businesses to act proactively on data protection.  The potential for data loss is a daily threat—from both external assaults and internal mistakes.  Small data losses can be just as devastating as large ones.  There are a host of ways to back up your data, and you may not need to go “to infinity and beyond.”

The first step in a backup plan is to identify business information that needs to be secured and protected.  Think about data such as client records, accounting files, sales history, compliance and legal information, and human resources records that would devastate your business if lost.  Also, consider the valuable pieces of data that might reside on your staff’s desktop or laptop computers, and decide if you want to simplify centralizing the storage and backup of that key information.

Next, try to identify the best backup strategy that fits your organization’s needs.  Start with determining how long your business can afford to be “down” if your data is inaccessible.  That decision drives the kind of approach to take with the backup plan that is put in place.  Strategies that include BDR (Backup and Disaster Recovery) appliances are for those who simply cannot afford to be down for more than an hour or two.

Then, seek out resources such as IT Radix that can provide backup strategies and tactics for you.  Focus on minimizing the human element and maximizing the automation and redundancy in a backup plan.  Ask lots of questions such as:  How do you confirm backups were successful?  How do you confirm what data is being backed up?  What do you do when you get a failure alert?  How quickly can you recover the data—from the local device and from the cloud?  Do you test backup and disaster recovery plans you put in place?

Wellington Wimpy from the famous Popeye cartoons was famous for the line, “I’d gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” Do not be a reactive business manager like Wimpy, who only pays later. Having a backup plan in place will ensure you avoid having to pay more in the end!

IT Radix can help organize a backup plan for your business. Click here for more data backup solutions!

 
First published in our March 2019 IT Radix Resource newsletter