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What you need to know about business data backup in Yuba City
Modern businesses run on data and that data needs to be protected. Threats to data come in two forms – accident and malice. The latter makes the headlines, but the former is much more common. You need to protect against both.
Protecting against data theft means implementing robust cybersecurity (possibly with the help of a managed IT security partner). Protecting against data loss means having a robust business data backup strategy. With that in mind, here is a quick guide to what you need to know about business data backup in Yuba City.
Everything starts with your production systems
A business data backup is essentially a snapshot of your production data. It, therefore, follows that the better you manage your production data, the better you will be able to manage your business data backups.
Clean data in, clean data out
What are your data-entry points and how well do they work? You want your data-entry points to encourage users to enter full and accurate data. Part of this is technical. It involves interface design and the correct use of data-entry fields and data-validation. Part of it, however, involves understanding and respecting your users (internal and external). For example, if you explain to them why the data is wanted, why it matters, then you usually stand a much better chance of getting them to enter it to the standards you would like.
You need to be able to track your data through its life-cycle
There has long been a legal requirement to keep track of sensitive data and data which is required for compliance purposes. The former has to be deleted as soon as it has served its assigned purpose (which includes any compliance requirements) and the latter must be kept until the compliance period is over.
These days, there is also a financial incentive to be able to keep track of what data is being used and how it is being used so that you can reduce your costs. What you are aiming to do is match the speed of your storage to the speed with which data items are likely to be needed, taking into account the fact that this can change over time.
For example, some data may initially need the fastest storage you can find, but then become dormant, at which point it can be moved into a data archive until it must/can be deleted. Other data may be required at the fastest-possible speeds at certain times of the year, but can be kept in slow storage at others. For example, data that needs to be quickly-accessible during the Christmas sales period might be able to go into slow storage for the summer and vice versa.
The cloud is usually the most sensible option for business data backups
If you’re in a data center, you may want to take a business data backup to a physical storage device which you will keep locally. Even in a data center, however, it generally makes sense to keep a second business data backup in the cloud. This gives you an off-site copy of your data without the hassle of moving physical storage media from A to B (and back again).
If you’re already in the cloud, then it makes sense to stay there. The most pragmatic approach is generally to take two business data backups. The first should be to your local cloud. If you’re in a public cloud, this may well be done for you. The second should be properly off-site, meaning in a second cloud. This usually balances robustness with cost (and the need to avoid creating extra security risks).
For completeness, undertaking cloud to cloud backups from a public cloud can pose some technical challenges, but tackling them is likely to be a whole lot easier than tackling the consequences of data loss. This is particularly true if you have a good business data backup vendor on your side.
You need to protect your business data backups
You need to treat protecting your business data backups as seriously as you treat protecting your production data. This starts with encrypting it before it leaves your “home” cloud (or data center). Encryption can be much easier in a private cloud (or data center) than it is in a public one, but it is possible in a public cloud and it must be done.
Once the data has been moved to the second cloud, it’s advisable to keep it encrypted until it’s either back on your servers, deleted or needed for use in the second cloud (for example in a disaster recovery scenario).
If you’d like to speak to a reputable and experienced business data backup services provider in Yuba City, please click here now to contact Salient IT.
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