Cloud Data Backup Yuba City

A quick guide to cloud data backup in Yuba City

Even if you’re still running a data center, it often makes a great deal of sense to use cloud data backups. If you’re already in the cloud (public or private) then, realistically, cloud data backups are usually the only sensible way to go. With that in mind, here is a quick guide to cloud data backup in Yuba City.

The basic principles of cloud data backup are essentially the same as for traditional backups 

If you’re starting with the end in mind, then the end goal of cloud data backup is to give you three copies of your data (including your production copy) over two media (in this case clouds), with one being “off-site” (in that it is not your main, production cloud). The outcomes of cloud data backups are still measured in terms of recovery point objectives and recovery time objectives and it’s in the latter that the cloud really shines.

Cloud data backups are an integral part of cloud disaster-recovery solutions 

If you want to use a cloud (public or private) for disaster recovery, then you will need to be able to access your data backups from that cloud. You will, however, also need the ability to work with that data. This has two implications. First of all, you will need to have access to your usual tools and secondly you will need to be able to have your data in the clear.

If you are already working in a public cloud, then usually the most sensible option by far is to back up your data to an alternative public cloud (which meets any relevant security standards) and to ensure that this public cloud also holds an operating system, applications and anything else you need to get on with business as usual.

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If you are in the private cloud, you have two main options. Option one is to use the public cloud as a cost-effective storage location for your data backups and accept the fact that this will create a certain degree of complication for your disaster-recovery process and option two is to have a second private cloud on stand-by as a disaster-recovery solution and also use this to house your data backups.

The reason why using a public cloud will complicate your disaster-recovery process is because you will need to encrypt the data on your own servers and keep it encrypted until it is either used for recovery or deleted.

This means, firstly, that you will need to have both of your private clouds linked to the public cloud which stores your cloud data backups and secondly that you will need to transport the data from the public cloud to your disaster-recovery cloud and then decrypt it before you can resume production. This will obviously slow your RTO. If, by contrast, you use a second private cloud both as a disaster-recovery solution and as a place to store your cloud data backups, you can have your data ready for immediate use.

One way to have the best of both worlds is to keep your critical data backed up to a private cloud and to use the public cloud to store the rest. That way staff can still keep going, at least at a basic level, while you work on a full restore.

Cloud data backups are only cost-effective if you manage your data properly

You are probably legally mandated to apply robust data governance to any sensitive data you hold. This typically includes any sensitive data relating to your employees. For the most part, however, from a legal perspective, you can do what you like with your general data. This may come as a relief to any companies which are sitting on mounds of legacy data which nobody appears to want, but nobody is prepared to delete, but failing to get to grips with the management of general data can really push up the costs of cloud data backups.

The key point to note is that in the cloud there is a direct link between consumption and costs. It therefore follows that the more economical you can be with your consumption, the more economical your cloud data backup costs will be. As an absolute minimum, you want to make sure that you are only backing up your production data. If you must keep dormant data, then it should be placed into an archive and kept there. This will reduce the volume of data you need to transmit which in turn reduces both costs and time to recovery.

If you’d like to speak to a reputable and experienced cloud data backup provider in Yuba City, please click here now to contact Salient IT.