Securing the most important data is a must for businesses of all sizes. Because a loss of data can have the most unpredictable causes and damage to the company, its image, and profitability in the long term. Local backups can help here. Even more interesting, but cloud backups.
Learn more about why this is and what needs to be considered before a cloud backup. Our cloud Backup checklist is designed to help you make the transition to online data backup smoothly.
The benefits of a cloud backup
The cloud backup, where a copy of your data is sent to an external data center, where your data is then stored for you, has long established itself on the market. The reasons are important advantages such as:
- Low costs (no own backup infrastructure necessary, no maintenance costs)
- A convenient solution that, once set up, runs regularly in the background
- Any expandable storage space
- Data can be restored anytime, anywhere
- High-security standards among the providers
Last but not least, transferring a backup to the cloud while maintaining a local backup in-house ensures expert-recommended geo-redundancy. The cloud backup thus separates the backed-up data from the location of the backup. This would even protect your data if your business was affected by natural disasters or burglaries. Despite these advantages, you also have to pay a lot of attention to cloud backups …
What should you consider before backing up with cloud backup?
1.) A fast and stable connection to the Internet is the basic requirement to think about a cloud backup.
2.) Which data should be stored in the cloud? Important: Cloud data protection must withstand both your self-imposed security policy and the legislator’s prescribed security policy! Is there any data that should not leave your sphere of influence (intellectual property, customer data, assets, employee personal information)? If in doubt, you should seek legal advice.
3.) You need a trusted provider. Prefer providers based in the United States, as they are bound by the strict privacy policy. Experience reports of other companies and certifications of the data center allow a basic orientation.
4.) Large amounts of data to be stored can incur high costs depending on the provider. Compare (say, from this list of cloud backup vendors ) and plan quite a bit enthusiastically, as far as the evolution of your data volumes is concerned.
5.) Your data will leave your sphere of influence. Even if your backup data is encrypted and sent to the cloud storage via secure SSL wire and stored there encrypted, it could be decrypted by hackers or by the provider itself (which makes point two so important!).
6.) In the event of a disaster, restoring your systems over the Internet can take a long time for large amounts of data. Keyword: Available bandwidth. As a rule, the data centers then send via physical media, which, however, also brings a certain delay with it.
7.) You are dependent on a third party. For example, what do you do if your provider stops the service? Are there any emergency plans and arrangements? Who guarantees you with a change of provider that the data will be deleted at your previous provider? Look for the open discussion with the provider of your choice.
8.) As with any other form of backup, recovery plays an important role in cloud backup. It must be guaranteed that data recovery in an emergency is as fast as possible and works! So check your cloud backups regularly for functionality.
Let us help you!
This listing should not be scary. The benefits of having a cloud backup outweigh the issues to be considered. In addition, you always have the opportunity to be supported by external IT service providers.
IT service provider such as Bleuwire™ know what needs to be taken into account in a cloud backup and help you with the initialization of your cloud backup solution as well as with the functionality tests or the installation of the backup in the worst case scenario.
Contact Bleuwire™ to learn about cloud services and solutions – how they can help your business.
