Checking Out a Professional Data Backup Strategy

Data backup is extremely important for any business, but some companies struggle to implement this solution in an effective way. First, we’ll outline some of the information you should know about data backup, then we’ll dive into the details on how to successfully implement a data backup solution.

What Data Should Be Backed Up?

Your business might store a ton of data, leading your organization to make some questionable decisions regarding which data should be backed up. The general consensus is that you shouldn’t back up and restore all of your data all at once; rather, you should prioritize data that is important to your operations which will allow you to keep them up even under the worst circumstances. Once you have identified the minimum amount of data your organization needs to sustain an acceptable level of operations, you can then push your efforts toward restoring the rest of your data over time.

How Often Do Backups Occur?

Data backups used to happen only once or twice a day through tape backup, and it was an incredibly resource-intensive process that could not happen during the workday. You should prioritize backing up data that has been changed recently rather than files that simply exist in the background. Doing so allows you to perform backups much more often. We tend to prefer 15 minute intervals if possible.

Where Do the Backups Get Stored?

We recommend that you use the 3-2-1 rule for your data backups. This means three copies of your data total, stored in two physical locations, one of those locations being offsite, like in a secure cloud environment. You shouldn’t store all of your backups in one location, either off-site or on-network, because if anything happens to that particular location, your chances of recovering from a data loss incident are decreased considerably.

Where Does the Backup Deploy To?

You should have a plan in place for every possible kind of disaster, even one that completely destroys your in-house infrastructure and renders it inoperable for the foreseeable future. Some data backup systems come equipped with hardware that can function as a temporary server should the rest of your infrastructure fail, and it can keep your business going until a replacement has been secured.

k_Street Consulting, LLC can aid your business in implementing business continuity and data backup solutions. We can even automate the entire process, taking a significant amount of frustration and stress out of the equation entirely. To learn more, reach out to us at (202) 640-2737.