Everything was going fine until your 27” iMac, where most of your company files are stored, went down with a bad graphics card. Now your business is at a standstill without customer or accounting files until you can get it fixed.
Your office manager comes to you because no one can access their files on the server this morning. They’ve been scrambled by a ransomware infiltration with a ransom request in the thousands. You’d been meaning to put a backup and recovery plan in place, but didn’t get around to it.
These are very real scenarios playing out around the world in businesses daily, costing time, money, and productivity… and they could’ve been avoided.
It costs companies an average of $2,450 per data loss episode.
According to a report by Dell, IF data is recoverable, each data loss episode costs a business an average of $2,450. If the data is lost forever and not recoverable, the cost can be more than $400,000. That’s a huge hit to any size business!
Our Business Continuity Team at Technology Visionaries helps companies get ahead of any man-made or natural disasters that can impact their day-to-day business by working with them on a sound backup and disaster recovery plan.
What Are the Main Causes of Data Loss?
While you may not live in a place where you have to worry about hurricanes or tornadoes, that doesn’t mean your data is safe from loss.
It turns out that most data loss episodes are due to hardware failure rather than natural disasters, which only account for about 3 percent, according to a Ponemon Study cited in the Dell report.
How Data is Lost:
- Hardware failure
- Human error
- Software corruption
- Malicious criminal attack
- Computer viruses
- Computer/device theft or loss
- Natural disaster
What is a Backup and Recovery Appliance?
You’re ready to protect your business and put a backup and recovery plan in place… but what does that mean, exactly?
At Technology Visionaries we walk our clients through the process so they know they’re protected and can sleep soundly at night. We perform hourly backups between 8am-6pm M-F for most of our clients that are designed to run unobtrusively in the background.
Two of the backup and recovery appliances we use and are a partner for are Datto and Replibit. These tools combine a number of powerful features that help keep your data safe and recoverable.
Overview of What These Backup & Recovery Appliances Provide:
- Image-based backup software
- Local Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) appliance
- Cloud replication
- Cloud-based recovery
- Global system management
- Fast recovery times
- Backup of computers, servers, mobile devices
What to Look for in a Backup and Disaster Recovery Solution
For some people, a USB drive or CD has been their backup solution, but that’s not a very scalable one and can’t help if the drive or CD gets lost or damaged. In today’s data-driven world, your business needs solutions that can handle terabytes of data and that can be accessible from any device at any time.
A good backup and recovery solution will ensure your business doesn’t skip a beat in the event of a data disaster.
It can take months for a company to recover from a major data loss incident, and some never do. So, implementing a business continuity plan to back up your data and make it easy to recover when and if you need it is vital for any size company.
Here are some of the things that you should look for in any backup and disaster recovery solution.
Scalability
Today you may have one server and 20 computers and devices to back up, but next year, you may have doubled that number. You want to make sure that as you grow, your backup and recovery appliance can grow with you.
Hardware Compatibility
Whether your office uses Apple, Windows, or Linux, your backup system should be compatible. Offices use multiple computer types, servers, POS devices, and mobile devices so you want to make sure that no matter where your data is created and stored, your backup can handle it.
Strong Track Record
If a new BDR has just come out last month, they may have a flashy website, but how well is it going to work? You want to wait until a brand new backup solution has a little more time in the market. Likewise, you want something with good reviews and that other business owners say positive things about.
Excellent Technical Support
If you have a question about recovering data, you want to make sure you have someone to help. You never know when a data disaster can strike and having the support you need when you need it makes a huge difference in how fast your company recovers.
Cloud Capability
The “cloud” is everywhere these days and it’s because it makes it possible to store and retrieve data that is independent of a specific computer or hard drive. That means in the event of a disaster like a fire or flood, even if your computers and server are lost, your data would be safe in the cloud and retrievable from a new device. It’s vital to have a backup solution with this cloud capability.
Looking for Some Help with a Backup & Recovery Solution?
Do you have questions about whether your current backup solution is enough? Need to start from scratch with a new backup and recovery solution? Our Technology Visionaries Team is here to help you sleep easier at night. Contact us today for a free consultation.