Online Data Backup Services Placerville 

What you need to know about online data backup services in Placerville

The more you use the cloud the more sense it makes to use online data backup services. In fact, even if you are running a data center, it can still make sense to use an online data backup service as it saves you the hassle of getting physical media to an off-site storage location. Online data backup services are similar to traditional data backup services, but there are some key differences in the way they operate. With that in mind, here is a quick guide to what you need to know about online data backup services in Placerville.

It’s important to check that an online data backup service provider is in Placerville 

These days, you’re probably going to start looking for an online data backup services provider in Placerville by doing an internet search on that term. If you do, then it’s recommended that you double-check whether or not potential IT services vendors genuinely are located in Placerville (or at least near Placerville). You may well find that some of them at least are just offering online data backup services in Placerville, but are located elsewhere.

This matters a lot for two main reasons. Firstly, you need to know where your data is being held. If you’re handling sensitive data (including data gathered from your company employees) then this will probably have legal implications and even if you’re not (or it doesn’t), it’s still good security practice.

Secondly, you need to be aware that law-enforcers and regulators will come after you, not any IT services vendors you use. This means you need to vet your IT services vendors very carefully and ensure that your selection process is backed by a robust and enforceable service contract. This is all much easier if you stick with vendors who are local to you.

You probably want to stay with the 3-2-1 approach 

As a recap, the 3-2-1 approach says that you need three copies of your data (including your production copy) over two media (which includes clouds) with one copy being kept off-site (in a second cloud). You’ll take your local data backup to your local environment, which will probably be the cloud anyway. This will typically be your “everyday” data backup, which will generally be used to cover you for basic mishaps.

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Your off-site data backup is generally used to cover you for bigger issues, including disaster recovery. Online data backups make it easier to have more than one off-site copy of your data, however, as always, just because you can do something, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you should. The key point to remember is that your costs will increase with each data backup you take, as will your exposure to the risk of a data breach, but your potential benefits will not necessarily rise to the same extent.

The key to managing online data backups is to manage your data

Probably the single, biggest difference between online data backups and traditional data backups is that there is a direct connection between what you use and what you pay. In the cloud, if you keep excess data in your production system, then you will pay excess costs to store it. These costs will be multiplied across every copy of the data (i.e. your online data backups) plus they may well feed into any data archives you hold.

This means that it pays to make the effort to ensure that all the data you hold is necessary for a business objective (as you should already be doing for any sensitive data you hold). This means not only thinking about what you need to collect, but also how you go about collecting it and entering it into your systems. It also means thinking about the practicalities of managing data items throughout their life-cycle.

To begin with, you want your data-entry systems to guide users to enter complete and accurate data. The obvious way to do this is by limiting inputs (e.g. through using drop-down menus) and backing this up with data validation. It can also be helpful to offer contextual guidance on why you are collecting the information, especially if it’s sensitive (i.e. personal). Customers may be more willing to share their data with you if you can explain to them, clearly, why you want it. Never assume that it’s “obvious”, even if you think it should be.

Once you have the data, you need a process to identify when it becomes dormant and what should happen to it at that point. Your options are to delete it or to put it into a data archive until it must/can be deleted. Either way, it needs to be moved swiftly out of your production system.

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