Recently, a group of us in my managed services marketing peer group started a discussion on the best data backup best practices to help our clients avoid technology disasters. Rob Schenk, CEO of San Francisco IT support company, Intivix and my team at Centerpoint IT put together this quick list of very important items all business must consider.
Instead of running down a list of dos and don’ts, which most of us will probably forget, let’s look at six data disaster types. We’ll explain how they could have avoided each. Then follow-up with the data backup best practices tip.
A medical device company backs up data, every single day, without fail. But their data failed during recovery. Upon further inspection a simple, but necessary step missed. The missed step? They never tested their data recovery process beforehand.
Tip #1 – Never testing your data backup and restore process, and crossing your fingers the data will reset, you won’t successfully recover every layer. Your tested disaster recovery plan is only as good as your tested data restore process. Back up and check regularly.
An e-commerce store lives by the clock. Time is money and every second counts. No sales are a significant impact with an online business. But when the disaster occurred, no one knew how long it would take to restore and access the companies data. With each passing minute revenue lost.
Tip #2 – Never factoring in the restore time, along with the value of your data, impacts the company, when that information isn’t recovered quickly. Even if your data is safely stored offsite, you must always calculate the recovery time. Loss of revenue, productivity and customer trust when you forget.
When the downtown Atlanta multi-floor building had a power outage, no one had considered how complex the IT infrastructure environment could be during the recovery. When the power was restored the mandatory requirement of testing and restoring the infrastructure had never been considered.
Tip #3 – Never knowing you have to inventory, backup and restore each component, becomes a mammoth recovery task and places time constraints on access to your files, servers, data center, operating systems, etc. during the restore time. Backup and recovery have mandatory layers.
As you read through the first three data disasters; not knowing, or ignoring data backup best practices, hurt these Atlanta businesses. I’ll bet you’re thinking about your data system backups right now. So, let’s continue.
When a non-profit learned their vendor stopped making tape backups, but for months kept insisting they switch over to cloud and virtualized solutions, the organization’s resistant to change cost them dearly when their system got hacked.
Tip #4 – Never looking into the latest technology backups and solutions, because you don’t want to change; all though you knew for months the old process was ending, you exposed yourself to ID theft and data loss. Technology is always evolving, and the latest backups solutions are affordable.
A local clothing store never liked all the steps it took to protect their data. If they could only push a button and the files got backed up, that’s all they wanted to do. Except on the day of the big storewide sales event, their system went down overnight, and in the morning nothing could be restored.
Tip #5 – Never wanting to follow a proven data backup process; all due to inconvenience, will always leave a business or organization vulnerable to data loss or a system that cannot be restored. Preparing for any disaster recovery, you must come at it from a restore scenario, not just backing up data.
When an auto parts store manager didn’t show up for work, the store couldn’t open. That person was the only one authorized to be in possession of the server backups and database snapshots. It was suggested using an automated backup process, but they didn’t need any stinkin’ automation.
Tip #6 – Never considering your business doors can’t open because the individual in control of your server backups and database snapshots didn’t show up. When you rely on an automated backup process, should that individual not make it, that’s okay, you still can open for business.
There you have it. Centerpoint IT’s top data backup best practices to help Atlanta businesses reduce the risk of their business data being lost. Thanks to Rob Schenk at Intivix for his help with brainstorming ideas for our data backup best practices list.
Chris Chao
President
Centerpoint IT
Like this article? Check out, Which Version Of VMware vSphere Editions Should You Buy? (Questions/Answers) and Understanding Software-Defined Wide Area Networking [SD-WAN] (Research/Information) or 55.7% Of Atlanta Businesses Backup Plans Are Out Of Date and discover more.
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