Let’s Clear Up Some Major Misconceptions About Data Backup

Data backup is a critical component of a business continuity plan, but many businesses fail to understand why data backup is important, as well as what it entails. Here is why data backup is important, and why you need it for your business. An understanding of how your data backup saves your infrastructure will allow you to effectively use it for business continuity.

Multiple Copies Don’t Guarantee Effective Backup
It’s a best practice to keep multiple copies of your data strewn across various parts of your computing infrastructure. One should be in-house, while another should be stored off-site and in the cloud, completely unconnected from your in-house network. However, just because you have several backups of your data doesn’t guarantee that they’ll be effective when you need them most. Regardless of where they’re stored, data backups are still vulnerable to user error and data corruption. To avoid this unfortunate circumstance, make a habit of regularly testing your data backups.

Data Often Cannot Be Restored from the Original
While there may be an opportunity to restore data following a loss incident, it’s not always a guarantee. Regardless, rebuilding data out of nothing is a time-consuming endeavor, especially if you lost a significant portion of your data infrastructure. Instead, it’s better and more time-conscious to simply restore a backup of the data rather than attempting to restore data from the remains of your data disaster.

Data Backup and Disaster Recovery Aren't the Same Thing
It’s worth mentioning that data backup and disaster recovery aren’t the same thing, but are quite closely related. Data backup is the act of taking the backup itself, while disaster recovery is the ability to recover these data backups. Data backup represents a figure known as the recovery point objective, which determines how much data you want to back up at any given time. Disaster recovery, on the other hand, focuses on the recovery time objective, which is how long it takes you to get back to normal operations. Both of these should be clearly outlined in order to guarantee your disaster recovery goes smoothly.

One of the best ways to address these misconceptions is with a backup and disaster recovery (BDR) solution from SMART Services. Our myAGENCYbackup solution can help your business fully leverage enterprise-level business continuity software that allows for optimal uptime and efficiency. Our BDR can take backups as often as every hour--automatically--without disrupting the workday. Furthermore, these backups are captured both in the BDR device and in an off-site data center, from which they can be restored remotely in the event of a data loss disaster.

To learn more about BDR and business continuity, reach out to us at 586 258-0650 . Our professional technicians would be happy to answer any questions or concerns you might have about myAGENCYbackup or other technology solutions we offer.

Let Smart Services position your agency for tomorrow’s technological challenges. For 25 years, Smart Services has helped agencies across the U.S. face a changing environment by providing innovative technology solutions that allow agencies to focus on growing their business. MyAGENCYcloud, our complete cloud solution, covers all your technology needs in the cloud or at your agency. In today’s competitive environment, it’s time to make your agency technology a strategic asset, instead of a liability. Let us show you how. To learn more, please call our expert agency technology advisor at 586-258-0650.