Medium or Small office backup strategy on a Modest Budget
Just because your employees are working from home, doesn’t mean you’ll have to compromise on data protection. Ensure that end-user data is being backed up and protected no matter where your employees are.
When Carrie Bradshaw said, “Everybody is secretly running home and backing up their work” it was early this millennium, and people already prioritized backup over Burberry. It is fair to say that when you extrapolate Carrie’s habit of skipping backup, to small businesses, the story is quite surprisingly familiar. Apart from the occasional manual job that backing up can sometimes be, it can also become expensive as the volume of data grows. Expensive and tiring as it may be data backup is imperative to saving you the figurative “nine stitches”
Consider this, according to a recent study, 93% of companies that lost their data for 10 days or more filed for bankruptcy within one year of the disaster, and 50% filed for bankruptcy immediately. Even apart from Regulatory Compliance requirements like GDPR, Ransomware attacks are on the rise every day and the global pandemic has nothing on it.
Medium or Small Office Backup strategy
Cloud Storage
Though it has been around for a while now, in terms of internet time, cloud storage is still the new kid on the block. But cloud adoption has been so successful, that many businesses now consider a cloud solution as a default for backup. A recent Forbes study suggests that 30% of all IT budgets are allocated for cloud adoption with roughly, 48% went to SaaS, 30% to IaaS, and 21% to PaaS. Cloud storage helps you save space and logistics related to on-premise storage. If your budget is limited, customizable iDrive or the free 15GB offered by G Suite are great options, to begin with, while you decide your next steps. Microsoft’s Office 365 and OneDrive for Business could also be a good option for SMBs on a budget. They may not be the best options from a data privacy standpoint, but you can encrypt your backup data before sending them to the cloud – and that’s the best start for a small office backup strategy.
3 2 1 Backup Rule
The 3 2 1 backup rule is an industry best practice that basically protects you from losing your data to ransomware or insider threats – not to mention coffee spills! The rule is quite simple, keep at least three (3) copies of your data – one (1) primary and two (2) backup copies on different storage media, with one (1) of them located offsite. Why 2 backup copies you say? For one thing, it gives you redundancy because the chances are slim that both backup copies go bad or get damaged. Having one copy on-premise allows for fast recovery when needed, whereas the offsite copy gives you peace of mind and protects you in case of a disaster. Nowadays, a fairly common option is an on-premise physical backup coupled with a cloud backup. So, 3 2 1 backup rule let’s backup better?
Network Attached Storage (NAS)
While building a backup strategy for your small/medium business, keeping an option to add as you grow, is imperative. Network Attached Storage allows you to do just that. A Network Attached Storage device is a storage device connected to a network that allows storage and retrieval of data from a central location for authorized network users and varied clients. Now that we have the terminology out of the way, what this means for your business data is, it is flexible, and you can pile on as you go. Its minimal intervention interface, the lower cost make it a must-have for small/medium businesses.
Private cloud
But isn’t it expensive? Not when you look at the cost you could end up paying in terms of regulatory fines and ransom. Private clouds work best if you’re in an industry that is heavily regulated, or you have business-critical data. They offer great possibilities for customization and can be built to scale. Customizable security controls make it an easy pick if your business is dealing with users’ personal information.
Whatever your budget, in today’s world, backing up your data is more a necessity than an option. Backing up your data on a budget might seem like a herculean task but it is something you want to start doing sooner than later – and there are several easy ways to get started. You can always learn more about ransomware, insider threats, regulatory compliance, and more on our resources page. We’re constantly putting out pointers to help our audience build better data management strategies. Sign up to receive our newsletter to be among the first to read our tips.
