backup

According to TechTargets, “The term cloud came into widespread use in 2006 when Amazon launched AWS with the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service”. Since that time, there have been endless debates as to whether it is better to host IT infrastructure on-premises or in the cloud. From my perspective, the answer is a definite “it depends”. How do you figure out what’s best for you? Check out the three questions you need to ask as you determine on-premises versus the cloud. Your company should have the expertise, technology, and environment to support your business requirements. 

Earlier this year, I wrote an article entitled The IBM Power Trap that described how a series of decisions related to how you manage your applications and IBM Power can leave you stuck. A few people reached out to me with questions so I thought it might be appropriate to share a real-life story about one of our customers, we will call them Glass Corp International (GCI), that got caught in this trap and had to be rescued.

Your business runs on IT and chances are if your systems are down, your business is down. Have you contemplated the  most common reasons for data loss and whether your strategy can protect you in the event of natural disaster, hardware failure, fire, ransomware, human error or theft? Depending on the reason for your outage, you may experience data loss and need to leverage your backups to recover. Are you confident in your backup and recovery strategy?

One of the simplest tests you can do to assess your backup strategy is to see how you stack up against the 3-2-1 best practices for backups. This requires that you have 3 copies of your data on 2 different media with 1 of them being offsite. When I visit companies and talk to them about their backup strategies, very few are meeting the 3-2-1 best practices.

Could your company recover from a ransomware attack?

Ransomware attacks in North America rose by 158% between 2019 and 2020, according to cybersecurity firm SonicWall’s 2021 report. For many people, ransomware attacks really hit home when the May 2021 Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack brought fuel shortages to the East Coast — and when the June 2021 JBS meat company attack shut down nine beef plants, causing a nationwide meat shortage. Combined, these two companies paid $16 million in ransom to recover their businesses, and those were just the direct costs paid to the hackers, according to reports from CNBC and WSJ. In addition, each company spent millions more in the recovery and restoration of their business systems.

Are Your Data Backup Processes and Technology designed to evolve?

When it comes to data backup, there is one undeniable truth, your data is growing and your processes and technology need to be built to evolve and support that data growth. Every day your data volumes grow, your technology ages and your requirements change. You may not notice these changes day to day or month to month but year to year, if you look, you will see how things have changed.

When I speak with customers, what I tend to see is companies that invested in a backup system years ago, set it up and for the most part forgot about it.

IT and your data are what keep your business up and running but if the systems are working and there is no data, business comes to a halt. That’s why it’s so important for you to have a comprehensive data backup process that includes steps for securely getting your data offsite.

In working with many small businesses, we often find that the one-and-only backup copy of a company’s data is stored in a nearby desk drawer or taken home by an employee each evening. This can lead to the worst-case scenario: not having any data to actually recover when an event occurs.

Picture this: you walk into the office on Monday morning after enjoying a great weekend, and login to your company’s computer system. Instantly, you can tell something is wrong. Several of the files you frequently use for your job are gone!

Although it’s normal to feel a sense of panic when this happens, try to remain calm. Data disaster recovery, while overwhelming, doesn’t have to mean the end of the world for your business. In the event of a cyber threat, an internal mishap with your business’s data, or a natural disaster, there are several steps you can take to get your company back on track and operating smoothly again.

If your business is ready to take data security more seriously this year, implementing cloud backup is a great place to start. There are several important benefits of cloud services. When you back up your information in the cloud, you’re ensuring that your company’s documents, contracts, spreadsheets and more are protected if the original copy gets misplaced at the office. You’re also protecting yourself if documents are destroyed in the event of a natural disaster such as flooding or a fire.

Moving your data to the cloud doesn’t have to be an overwhelming process. Discover three easy steps to get started today.

IT systems these days are so critical to the success of any business, but even with the conveniences afforded by technological advancements, many companies don’t have a disaster recovery plan in place should they experience unplanned downtime. According to the State of Global Disaster Recovery Preparedness Annual Report, 57% of IT professionals surveyed have had at least one system outage in the past three months and 60% of companies don’t have a fully documented disaster recovery plan. Organizations need to prepare for everything from natural disasters to cyber-attacks.

Whether you manage your data in-house or through a data center provider, you’ve likely heard of Veeam. But do you understand Veeam’s full range of capabilities? Today, 60% of businesses are benefiting from using Veeam Cloud Connect Backup with a recovery time of fewer than 15 minutes and data replication up to 50 times faster than raw data transfer. So, what are you waiting for?

By partnering with Racksquared, our experts can help you get started with Veeam whether you work for a small business or large enterprise.