Backup is a critical yet often neglected facet of IT. Backups allow an organisations computer systems to resume operation in the event of a disaster such as: fire, theft, power loss, war, human error or computer virus.
While retrieving data off a failed hard-drive is possible in some instances, it is a time consuming, costly, consuming and labour intensive process. However in many instances such as laptop theft data retrieval is impossible.
Data loss can have significant ramifications for an organisation including: loss of reputation, downtime, and the stress and time involved in rebuilding servers.
In fact 93% of companies that lost their data centre for 10 days or more due to a disaster filed for bankruptcy within one year. 50% of businesses that found themselves without data management for this same time period filed for bankruptcy immediately. (National Archives & Records Administration in Washington).
There are two main types of backup: onsite and hosted backup (Many people will say the two varieties are tape and disc; however let’s save that for another article).
Onsite backup involves an organisations backup device (tape drive or disk array) being located within their company’s physical premise.
Alternatively when a hosted backup is utilised the backup device is located within a service provider’s datacentre space.
Many years ago the thought of transferring large amounts of data between geographically distant locations was seen as science fiction. However within the past 10 years improved internet speeds and advancements in virtualisation technology have led to a move towards hosted backup as industry best practice.
Hosted backup offers significant benefits over onsite backup. A datacentre is a purpose built facility for housing computer systems. It has redundant power supplies, military grade security, perfect environmental conditions and most importantly lighting fast internet connectivity.
A service provide will manage your backups, complete backup verifications and most importantly take the hassle out of the backup process allowing your organisations staff to utilise their limited time in other areas.
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