Top 7 cloud computing trends that are disrupting the business world
Concerned about your files and private data? Want to keep them safe in case something goes wrong?
If so, you need a backup and recovery solution. This is not a luxury but a requirement.
Human error is reported as the top reason organizations lose data and the average cost of downtime across companies of all sizes is nearly $4,500 per minute, scaling up to more than $11,600 per minute for large enterprises.
Under these circumstances, it’s clear to see that a solid, reliable backup and recovery solution is a necessity.
Murphy’s Law – “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong” – also applies to your data storage.
Table of Contents
- Choosing the right backup and recovery solution
- Comprehensive data backup and recovery
- Cost savings
- Predictable backup pricing
- Less storage and bandwidth
- Enhanced backup security
- Fast recovery
- Increased competitive advantage
- Wrapping up
Choosing the right backup and recovery solution
There are different backup approaches to choose from. Which is best for your organization will depend in a large part on your specific needs and in a smaller part on your budget. These approaches include:
- Incremental backups
- Full backups
- Synthetic full backups
- Differential backups
- Incremental-forever backups
Each option has its advantages. For instance, a full backup makes a copy of the entire data set. Nothing will be lost or left behind.
An incremental backup will only save the data that has been modified since the previous backup. This option helps reduce storage space usage and takes less time to complete.
Business owners can also opt for image, file, or database backups. For best protection, you may need a mix of types of backup and recovery.
The best-rated backup and recovery solutions are packed with features that will take your data protection to a whole new level.
Some provide flexible data capture, local offline storage, and unlimited scalability. Others enable users to perform full backups of running applications that contain sensitive data.
Make sure you choose a service that supports all the various platforms your organization uses, such as virtual machines and SaaS applications. This way, you’ll be protecting – and can recover – any or all of your organization’s data.
You want a solution that makes creating a backup simple and easy. The process should be straightforward and easy to understand. You’ll also want a solution with automation helps reduce IT’s workload and staffing costs.
Here are seven reasons why backup and recovery solutions are a “must have” for your organization.
1. Comprehensive data backup and recovery
Many organizations don’t back up their employee’s laptops or desktops but has those employees’ work stored on drives in those systems. Some rely on their on-premises storage but haven’t implemented a disaster recovery plan or even stores a copy of their backups off-site. If something happens, their files could be lost forever. A lost or stolen laptop, a data center fire, ransomware attacks, or hardware failures can bring a business down.
With a good backup and recovery solutions, there’s no need to worry about these things. Your data will be stored in a secure environment that you can access 24/7. In case of an incident, you can restore data within minutes with minimal disruptions to your business.
2. Cost savings
Data loss is expensive. 70% of small businesses that experience a major data loss end up closing within 12 months.
Not backing up your data could kill your business. Without a backup solution, it may cost thousands to recover lost data – or that data may be unrecoverable.
A good backup and recovery solution allows you to protect and restore data without the need for additional on-site hardware. This can save you a small fortune in the long run.
3. Predictable backup pricing
The unpredictability of many backup solutions’ pricing is one of the causes of many organizations switching over to a backup-as-a-service (BaaS) model to protect their data.
With BaaS the backup services are completely automated and can be customized to your needs through policies you set. Most BaaS solutions are priced using a monthly or yearly fee, making it simple to budget for.
Often, as a business grows, customers upgrade to a more comprehensive plan, or add new features to their existing plan. This gives them more full control over the costs involved.
At Veritas we pride ourselves in giving our customers a wide array of pricing options. We also strive to provide clear, simple, and predictable pricing for our BaaS solutions like Veritas Alta™ SaaS Protection.
4. Less storage and bandwidth
Manual backups are time-consuming and take up a lot of storage space as most organizations performing manual backups use a full-backup-every-time approach. This can lead to having an unmanageable amount of backup data.
A good backup and recovery solution will most-often use the incremental backup approach, reducing the required storage space and network bandwidth. This leads to improved network performance and lower storage costs.
5. Enhanced backup security
Many backup solutions – whether on-premises or in the cloud – boast advanced security features. These may include digital signatures, advanced encryption, and multiple authentication layers.
For instance, the Microsoft Azur Backup service sends email notifications whenever a critical operation is performed. Veritas Alta SaaS Protection maintains audit logs of all access and operations. If someone deletes your data, you’ll know right away.
6. Fast recovery
A good recovery solution allows IT to quickly find and restore data. The best solutions provide end-user self-service so your users can find and restore their own data without IT intervention.
Downtime caused by a data loss isn’t just due to the lost data itself. The longer it takes to find and restore the data, the longer the period of downtime you’ll experience.
Downtime results in business disruption, lost revenue, and decreased productivity. You may lose business-critical data from the applications that make everyday operations possible. All of this can lead to losing customers.
Veritas’ BaaS solution, Veritas Alta SaaS Protection, has been shown to excel in both performance and scalability by running in the cloud, minimizing the time until you’re back up and running again.
7. Increased competitive advantage
As described above, the right cloud backup and recovery solution makes it easier to quickly resume your activity when disaster strikes. No matter what happens, you’ll have access to your customer data, business transactions, and other critical data.
If a natural disaster (for example, a hurricane or flood) were to cause all local businesses to lose data, having a backup copy of data that you can restore quickly will have you up and running faster, which could give you an advantage over your competition.
Thanks to cloud services, you can access and use critical data without a local copy of data. Moreover, your customers will have far less worry about security breaches. This will give you another competitive edge and allow for better customer service.
Wrapping up
Data loss can (and usually will) happen when you least expect it. You can’t predict when an employee might delete important files, or when your systems might crash. The key is to be prepared for when it happens – because it will happen sooner or later.
Human error, hardware failure, ransomware or other malware, and power outages are among the primary causes of data loss. Of these, human error is the most likely cause.
Don’t forget that Mother Nature is fairly unpredictable, too. Think back on every major storm you remember hearing about over the past few years. In every case at least some businesses lost data, and/or needed to shut down at least temporarily. Natural disasters can result in revenue loss, unhappy customers, or even bankruptcy.
A reliable backup and recovery solution like Veritas Alta SaaS Protection will allow you to quickly restore data when needed. You can recover emails, folders, individual files, or entire systems. Your business simply cannot afford the cost of downtime.
Additionally, Veritas Alta SaaS Protection is safe and secure. It encrypts your data in transit and at rest. It has very strong access controls. It uses immutable storage to hold your backup data so it can’t be erased or changed.
Backup solutions shouldn’t take an entire IT department to run. With the right solution, it will be quick and easy for IT staff to learn their way around the solution. With Veritas Alta SaaS Protection, you can even delegate specific backup and recovery tasks to someone outside the IT department. For example, Human Resources handles sensitive data about your employees – they might prefer to have one of their own be responsible for finding and restoring their department’s data when necessary.
By now, you should be pretty clear on why your organization needs a reliable, automated backup and recovery solution. It will save you time and money while even providing a competitive edge. It might even save your entire business someday. Just make sure to pick the one that best suits your organization’s needs.
To learn more about Veritas Alta SaaS Protection, our fully-managed, fully-automated backup-as-a-service solution, contact us today for a deeper discussion or to schedule a demo!
