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What you need to know about data backup in West Sacramento
The old adage about data backups is that you need three copies of your data (including your production copy), on two different media with one copy being kept off-site. How this has been implemented has changed over the years, especially since the push for “cloud-first” strategies, but the basic principle is still a solid one. With that in mind, here is a quick guide to what you need to know about data backup in West Sacramento.
The basic process for backing up data is the same regardless of your medium
The standard process for backing up data is to identify what data needs to be backed up, collect it, compress it and encrypt it and then either save it to a physical device or upload it to a cloud. You then reverse this process to recover from it.
You can reduce the volume of data by backing up strategically and using compression
In principle, you should ideally use full data backup all the time. In practice, even with compression, this generates ridiculous volumes of data and is far too resource-intensive to be a feasible real-world option. It usually makes a whole lot more sense to intersperse full back-ups with incremental backups (backing up everything which has changed since the last backup was performed) and differential backups (backing up everything which has changed since the last full backup was performed).
You can then use compression to reduce the volume of your data even further. How much of a reduction you can make will depend on the nature of your data, but, as a rule of thumb, “bulky” files such as video files will generally compress quite significantly. It’s the “lighter” files such as documents that are unlikely to reduce as much, but then they are likely to be less of a load in any case.
Backing up to physical devices is now usually more hassle than it’s worth
For a long time, in the business world, the phrase “backing up” was essential taken to mean “backing up to tapes”. These days, however, tapes (and other physical devices) are generally seen as being more hassle than they’re worth. They have to be stored very carefully (as they can degrade as well as be damaged by environmental factors or targeted by data thieves). They also have to be transported off-site physically, which means that, if you want to restore from them, they have to be brought back on-site physically.
Backing up to tapes (or any other physical device) may still be a sensible precaution if you have concerns about the reliability of your internet connection, but these days most companies have access to continual, reliable broadband. This means that undertaking cloud backups is usually the most practical option, especially if you’re working in the cloud in any case.
You must back up to a second cloud to have robust protection
It’s fine to take a backup of your data and keep a copy of it on your main cloud. In fact, many public cloud vendors do that automatically and make it a selling point of their service. This approach, however, will only give you two copies of your data and while they may be physically off-site, in practical terms, they are the equivalent of on-site copies. You therefore need to back-up to another cloud for full protection.
There are several reasons why it is dangerous to rely purely on the automated backups taken by public cloud vendors. Most of them revolve around the fact that they give you protection against accidental deletion, whether that’s deliberate or (probably more likely) accidental.
Remember that, in the public cloud, security is a shared responsibility. Your public cloud vendor will protect their platform against external threats (environmental or human), but it is your job to protect your data against threats which come from within your organization, or which are caused by a lack of security within your organization.
An effective data backup strategy is essential for disaster recovery
This much may be obvious, but it’s important to remember that staff need more than data to do their work. They need tools with which to access and use the data, so you’ll need to think about how to provide them. If you’re already working in one public cloud and backing up to another, this could be as simple as making sure that you can duplicate your usual set-up in the other cloud. If, however, you usually work in the private cloud, then you may need to set-up another private cloud to which you can switch if necessary.
If you’d like to speak to a reputable and experienced Data backup provider in West Sacramento, please click here now to contact Salient IT.
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