Tip of the Week: You Better Test Your Backup

Data backup can be the difference between a business that fails and a business that succeeds. After all, if an organization suffers from a data loss incident so bad that it has to deploy its data backup, it wouldn’t be able to survive without it. With a data backup and disaster solution, you can ensure business continuity. But what does this kind of system need in order to succeed, and how can you make sure your organization benefits from a data backup system in place?

We’ll discuss some of the most important parts of a data backup solution and how you can keep track of whether or not it will work to keep your business safe in the long run.

The Key Parts of Data Backup
The best kinds of backup solutions have three major aspects to them. They are all important to making sure that the solution can benefit your organization. Here they are:

• Snapshot-based backups: Your backups should be taken periodically throughout the workday so that you can keep data loss to a minimum on the off-chance that you ever encounter a disaster. Snapshot-based backups can be taken as often as every fifteen minutes to minimize data loss.
• Quick data recovery: You need to have a solution in place that can plan for rapid data recovery. Minimizing costs associated with downtime is critical to the success of any business continuity plan.
• Testing to ensure proper backups: How do you know your data backups work if you never test them? You should be testing your backups to make sure that they will work as intended when you need them most.

Why Testing Your Backups Is Important
Imagine that you’re in a situation where your business is having an ordinary workday, only to experience a sudden disaster scenario. It doesn’t really matter which scenario it is, whether it’s a power surge, tropical storm, or hacking incident--the point is that it’s a situation where you won’t last long without data backup of some sort. You try to deploy your data backup, but the files are corrupted or you don’t have an infrastructure to back up to. Now what? You’re stuck in a situation where your organization needs to recover, but it can’t.

If you fail to test your backups regularly, your business--and, by extension, the futures of both yourself and your employees--is at risk. Therefore, testing is something that you absolutely cannot ignore.

What You Should Do
If working with your business’ technology isn’t what you would call your strongest skill, working with a managed service provider can help you make the right calls concerning your organization’s future. To learn more about data backup and disaster recovery, reach out to Washington Works at 301-571-5040.