Astoundingly, between 75 and 90 percent of all businesses do not have a backup plan that is adequate to restore their systems if a significant disaster happened. Many businesses consider the relatively low risk of being hit by a severe hurricane or massive earthquake as being acceptable. However, these businesses fail to take into consideration the high probability that they will at some point experience a significant hardware failure or some other issue that isn’t enough to make headline news, but is definitely enough to derail their business operations.
An easy, low-maintenance, inexpensive solution is a cloud-based backup solution. The cloud is ideal for saving space, because it doesn’t require large rooms filled with tape backups. Cloud backups are also — wait for it — safer than onsite backups. How can this be? Here’s the scoop.
Cloud Backup Vendors are Security Experts
Cloud backup vendors are cyber security specialists. They are informed on the latest threats and knowledgeable about monitoring systems and responding to threats quickly.
Your business isn’t likely a cyber security business. You probably specialize in something else like insurance or law or retail. Securing your data is a secondary activity, in other words, it is not your specialty. Cloud backup vendors are security experts. It is the core of their business activities. Hence, they can usually do a much better job of securing a business’ data than the business can.
Cloud Backup Vendors are Geographically Separated from Your Facilities
One problem with most backups is that the business keeps all of the copies on site. It should be inherently obvious what’s wrong with this setup: anything that threatens your business’ primary systems will also pose a threat to any backup copies kept onsite. Fire, theft, vandalism, tornado, flood — any of these could destroy both your primary systems and your onsite backup copies. Cloud backup vendors that are located in another state or region are the best way to safeguard your backups. The chances of two devastating events happening in completely different regions at the same time are so astronomical as to be practically impossible.
Why Tape Backups Almost Always Fail
Backup tapes are typically bought in batches, meaning that when one fails, it’s about time for all of them to fail.
Most onsite backups are stored on tape. Aside from the other problems with onsite backup storage, there’s another reason why tape backups tend to fail when you most need them to work. Businesses usually buy backup tapes in bulk, all at the same time. Since they were made, packaged, sold, and bought at the same time, it stands to reason that the tapes tend to fail at about the same time. Have you ever noticed that when you have to replace one light bulb, you end up having to replace several around the same time? The same principle applies to tapes — their life spans are similar. That’s why so many businesses try to restore to tape only discover that the latest backup copy was bad, and the copy before that, and the copy before that …
So, not only are cloud-based backups cheaper and more convenient, they are also safer and more secure. Whether your business is set back by a small disaster like a hardware failure or a newsworthy disaster like Hurricane Sandy or an earthquake, cloud-based backups are your ticket to recovery. Want to learn more about the safe, secure Backbox backup and DR solutions? Contact us today.