Structure Your Backup Platform to Your Business’ Needs

There are a lot of different ways that companies and organizations approach data backup, ranging from backing up everything to backing up literally nothing (which we do not recommend). In many ways, backup is simply a form of insurance—the difference being that you’re investing in a solution to a problem, rather than a means to cover your business’ damages.

While there are assorted backup strategies available to businesses, the most important consideration to make is which of them will best fit your purposes. After all, different businesses create and collect different types of data, and losing that data therefore has different consequences for one than it would for another. Let’s take a moment to examine the prospect of shaping a backup strategy to the way your business operates.

Focusing on Operability

Take a moment and consider something: of all the data you have, what could you simply not continue to function without? What data could land your business in major trouble if it were to be lost? As your data powers your daily operations, you probably have a pretty good idea of what is most essential to your business’ continued survival.

However, it isn’t that simple. Unfortunately, you can’t be sure that your data is safe—after all, if it were saved on a single server in a reinforced, completely secure room, that data could still be lost. The server could malfunction, or catch fire, and your data would be gone. Data loss doesn’t always mean data theft.

No, there is no guarantee that your data will be safe, so you need to address this risk through preventative action. This is why an operational backup strategy is so useful. By incorporating insights into which data is used most often and how that data is put to use, an operational backup combines the benefits of incremental and differential backup strategies.

In short, when the chips are down, you’ll know you can restore your necessary data as the need arises.

Why Does Operational Recovery Matter?

From here, we will proceed under the assumption that you have hired human beings to work in your business. Guess what is directly responsible for the majority of a given company’s data loss?

If you guessed “humans”, you’d be right. Human beings can make mistakes. Some are negligent, some are vindictive, and others just don’t grasp the importance of your information systems’ care. Therefore, a data backup is a smart investment.

That’s without even mentioning that a lot of data loss can happen without the “help” of your employees. Consider your central hardware. If that fails for any reason, or is somehow damaged, your business’ IT could be suddenly left unmanaged and unconfigured. Access control systems and email platforms could be lost, along with all the important information they contain, and you would then need to spend days and weeks rebuilding them from the ground up. Alternatively, a backup could help you avoid this stress and expense.

Operational Recovery

The data recovery process--especially in those times when you are fully migrating data from one server to another--is notoriously slow. The trouble is that if you are trying to recover data, it is problematic when the recovery process takes a long time. The longer you are without data, the more downtime you face. Downtime is wasted money. With the BDR, however, the restore times are much faster, especially since you can choose to restore from either the BDR itself or the data center it is backed up to. 

The BDR is one of the most useful products you can purchase for your business. It is an insurance policy against a multitude of potential problems. Call Washington Works at 301-571-5040 to talk to one of our consultants about the BDR and all the good it can do for your business today.