Secure data backups are critical to businesses because they minimize the chance of losing important data, satisfy cybersecurity requirements, and ensure business continuity in the event of a disaster—whether a natural disaster, equipment failure, or cyber incident.
Data backups and storage issues are among the top technology challenges facing small and medium-sized businesses.
Despite the critical role of data backups, many organizations do not have them. Or, if they do have backups, they are ineffective because they’re not easily accessible or secure.
According to the U.S. Chamber Foundation, 94 percent of businesses think they would be able to respond to an emergency, but only 26 percent have actually developed and implemented a disaster plan.
Failing to establish a contingency plan can lead to a host of issues, including accidental data loss, configuration problems, regulatory compliance issues, extended downtime, and possible cyberattacks including a data breach or ransomware attack.
In this article, we’ll examine what’s keeping many small businesses from developing data backup and recovery strategies and outline the steps needed to do so.
With this information, you’ll have a thorough understanding of why you need data backup solutions and how best to adopt one for your business.
Why Do Businesses Need A Data Backup And Recovery Plan?
Without access to critical files, applications, systems, and databases, many businesses wouldn’t be able to operate.
For instance, what would happen if your server crashed? What if your IT team failed to catch security misconfigurations, such as improperly configured firewalls or multi-factor authentication (MFA), leading to a cyber incident?
What if an employee or third-party contractor accidentally stepped on a loose network cable and took down your Active Directory domain controller, effectively paralyzing your business. This could cause broken access to domain resources like databases, servers, networks, and websites as well as potential data loss.
Without reliable backups, you may find that some of the lost data is irretrievable.
A lack of effective backups could multiply your risks for:
1. Unplanned downtime
- You could face an extended operational shutdown.
- This could lead to lost productivity, missed deadlines, inability to complete sales, possible legal fallout, and significant revenue losses.
2. Increased risk of cyber threats
- Such vulnerabilities could open the door for malicious actors to weasel their way into your systems to steal or compromise your data.
- Bad actors have gotten increasingly savvy in using advanced tools, including AI and machine learning, to capitalize on human mistakes and exploit cybersecurity flaws within your infrastructure
3. Cybersecurity compliance enforcement penalties
- In addition, you could face penalties or fines for failing to maintain compliance with federal or state cybersecurity and data privacy laws and regulations.
- Such fines and penalties could deal a crippling blow to many struggling small and medium-sized businesses
Are External Hard Drives Enough For Data Backups And Recovery?
While external hard drives do play an important role in helping to secure your data, it should not be the only way you’re safeguarding your vital business information should disaster strike.
For instance, your external hard drive could crash, wiping out all of the important data stored on it.
Another important consideration is whether you’re able to access your physical hard drives in the event of an emergency.
For instance, if there’s a flood, fire, or hurricane, you may not be able to retrieve your backups to restore lost data.
Another possibility is that your disks can become damaged or corrupted due to human error. For example, your IT staff could accidentally overwrite or delete data, an employee could spill coffee, or an individual could trip on a cable, causing your hard drive to crash to the ground.
These are just a handful of examples that clearly illustrate why a single backup solution is not ideal for businesses.
What Are Effective Data Backup Solutions?
1. External Hard Drives
- External hard drives are a convenient and cost-effective way to keep a copy of your important files and documents
- Because they can be easily moved, external hard drives can also be stored at an off-site location as an additional precaution
2. Network Attached Storage (NAS) Devices
- NAS devices allows employees to store and share files locally within your on-premises network.
- They have built-in storage that can easily be increased to scale with your business, unlike with traditional external storage devices.
- Since there are different types of NAS devices, you would need to have in-house IT professionals or an external IT provider with the expertise to help you pick the right solution for your business.
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3. Cloud Storage
- Businesses can choose a public, cloud-based storage platform, private cloud storage, or a hybrid cloud solution that combines both on-premises data storage with cloud-based data storage and file sharing.
- The cloud strategy you choose will depend on a number of factors, such as your business, the type of data you store, cost, accessibility, compliance, and scalability.
4. Onsite Server
- Having an on-premises server gives businesses greater flexibility and control over their data rather than using a third-party cloud server
- They require an in-house IT team or external managed IT support to effectively manage and maintain your on-premises servers.
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5. Solid State Drives (SSDs)
- Solid state drives are a type of physical storage device that use flash memory to access data.
- SSDs have what’s known as non-volatile memory, which maintains stored data even when the power is off, making them more reliable.
- This makes accessing, storing, and sharing data easier and faster than with regular hard disk drives. They also speed up recovery times.
6. Removable Media
- Removable media such as a tape cartridge or USB drives can be used as a temporary backup in case of a hard disk crash or other emergency.
- These options are often used for archival purposes for redundancy rather than as primary data backup storage.
- Since technology is constantly evolving, these storage methods could eventually become obsolete, heading to the same technology graveyard as reel-to-reels, cassettes, and VHS tapes.
What Are Best Practices For Data Backup and BCDR Planning?
To protect your business now and into the future, it’s important to establish data backups that are accessible, secure, and reliable as part of your comprehensive business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) plan.
To do so, you’ll need to figure out what kind of information you have, how it flows through your environment, and whether any of it requires special safeguards for handling and storage to meet cybersecurity and data privacy regulations such as CMMC 2.0, NIST and HIPAA.
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This will allow you to determine what type of data backup solution you need.
For instance, do you need a full data backup for a complete record of the information being stored?
Do you only need incremental backups to store changes since the last backup (full or incremental)? Or, does your business need differential backups to be able to save changes made to the data since your last full backup.
It’s likely that you’ll need to use a combination of data backup solutions.
Here are some key components of an effective data backup plan:
1. Analyze and categorize your data
- Figure out what kind of data you have, including whether any of it needs special protections to meet cybersecurity requirements
- Categorize and segment your data, applying user access controls to limit access to critical information
- Establish a scope or boundary for highly sensitive data that requires additional cybersecurity controls
2. Determine your risk
- Conduct a business impact analysis to evaluate the risk to your business if a crisis were to happen, whether caused by Mother Nature, human error, equipment failure, or a cyberattack.
- Figure out what the direct impact to your business would be following the loss of critical data, including possible operational disruption and revenue loss.
3. Establish your recovery time objectives (RTOs) & recovery point objectives (RPOs)
- An RTO is how long your business could stay afloat and the amount of time you would need to recover following a disaster.
- An RPO is how much data (in terms of time) your businesses could afford to lose following an emergency and survive. For instance, could you withstand a full day’s disruption? A few hours?
4. Use a combination of backup solutions
- Avoid the proverbial “putting all of your eggs in one basket” by only using a single backup tool. Instead, use a layered approach that includes a combination of on-site and off-site data backup solutions.
- While your on-site backup solutions may allow your team to quickly access stored data, your cloud storage should be set up to prevent accidental data loss.
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5. Provide training
- Provide training to ensure that your staff knows your policies and procedures for safeguarding and retaining sensitive information.
6. Perform periodic testing
- Perform routine testing to ensure your data backups are accessible, secure, and functioning as they should.
- This will allow you to spot and fix any potential issues before a device failure, network disruption, or other crisis happens.
The Bottom Line: Data Backups Are Critical To Your Business Continuity
After reading this article, you now have a better understanding of the importance of effective data backups to protect your business in the event of an emergency.
Disasters can happen at any time, often with little or no warning. So, it’s critical that you have the right backup solutions in place to ensure that your business can weather the storm and come out intact on the other side.
Do you have a comprehensive business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) plan?
As a locally-based managed IT services provider, at Kelser, we have decades of experience developing customized data backup and recovery strategies for small and medium-sized enterprises.
If you need help evaluating your data and choosing the best data backup tools and systems for your business, reach out now by clicking the button. We’re here to help.