A Guide to a Comprehensive Backup Policy for Businesses

Protect Your Valuable Digital Data: The Complete Guide to Computer Backups
Your business continuously produces and costumes digital assets like contract documents, spreadsheets, and databases for its operation. Over time these digital assets may with more than your physical assets, and therefore you need to have the plan to protect them against unknowns.

First, this first you back them up of course! But how should you back up your computer and data and ensure backups will work when you need them? Is there a difference between a home computer and a business-critical computer backup?

In this guide, we will try to build a framework around backups and what would be the high level best practices you need to follow. As a business owner, you need to figure out and answer a few questions you need to address when choosing a backup system. In other words, given how your business operates, you need to determine what type of backup is best to fulfill your requirements. For example, do you create and store sensitive personal data? are obligated to keep your business data in a specific geolocation? Do your operation continuously rely on data to be functional? Establishing effective backup procedures and developing strategies for assessing their usability is crucial. As an essential component of data management, determining the optimal methodology for creating strategy backups requires careful consideration. Also testing the recoverability of backups effectively is critical to ensure preparedness in the event of critical data loss.

Creating a backup is only half the battle. In order to ensure the effectiveness of your backup, implementing a test strategy is crucial. One should be regularly testing their backups to confirm they are reliable in protecting data loss. Various methods exist for testing the backup, but regardless of approach, the critical point is to have a tested up-to-date copy ready at hand in case data restoration is required.

If you have never created a backup before, or if you are not sure how to create one that will work, don’t worry! We wrote this article to give you some ideas about the holistic backup strategy and processes your business needs to follow. We will also provide some tips and tricks for making sure your backups are as effective as possible.

So let’s get started!

1. Why Backup?

Backing up your data is critical as it provides a shield against potential data loss. Such occurrences may be due to system failures or unintentional deletions, and not having an adequate backup can result in grave consequences. There are many ways data can be lost, including:

• Hardware failure: Hard drives can fail without warning, taking all your data with them.
• Accidental deletion: It is surprisingly easy to accidentally delete files or even entire folders. If you don’t have a backup, those files may be gone forever.
• Viruses and malware: Malicious software can encrypt or delete your data, making it inaccessible.
• Natural disasters: Floods, fires, and earthquakes can destroy both your computer and your backup storage devices.

Backing up your data is the best way to protect yourself against these threats. Despite extreme cautiousness in handling data, a contingency plan to mitigate potentially damaging results is always essential.

2. What to Backup?

The first step in creating a backup is deciding what data you need to keep safe. This will vary based on your business data retention requirement and the types of data you handle, but there are some general considerations one can follow.

• Personal files: Photos, music, documents, and other personal files are irreplaceable and should be backed up regularly.
• Business files: If you run a business, you will need to backup important documents, databases, and other business-critical data.
• Operating system and applications: Reinstalling your operating system and all your applications can be time-consuming. Backup images of your system and applications can save you a lot of time if you need to do a reinstall.

3. How to Backup?

When deciding how best to backup your valuable information, several factors should be taken into account. Various techniques exist for this purpose, but effectiveness can vary considerably from one method to another. All in all, though compliance with standard principles ensures optimal outcomes in securing sensitive data.

• Local backups: Local backups are stored on an external hard drive or other storage device connected to your computer. They are quick and easy to create, but they are vulnerable to the same threats as your original data.
• Network backups: Network backups are stored on a network device. This is a common type of backup used in businesses for quick local recovery. They are slightly more complex to create but offer a centralized solution for multiple devices needing to be backed up.
• Cloud backups: Cloud backups are stored on a remote server and accessed over the internet. They are more secure than local backups, but they can be slower and more expensive. Depending on the level of compliance and security, AWS S3, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, Or Datto Cloud are some good solutions with their own differences.
• Hybrid backups: Hybrid backups combine local and cloud storage to provide the best of both worlds. They are more secure than local backups and faster than cloud backups, but they can be more expensive.

4. Testing Your Backup

Once you have created your backup, it is important to test it regularly to make sure it’s working properly. There are several ways to test your backup. A good rule of thumb is to keep a cold stand by computer and use it to deploy the image backup. If backup image successfully loads the standby computer, then backup should work in the event you need to restore to your original computer.

For file and folder backups try restoring some of your data from the backup images. If you can successfully restore your data, then your backup is working properly. If the data can not be restored immediate troubleshooting needs to happen right away to find the root cause of the issue and resolve it.

5. Tips and Tricks for Effective Backups

There are many ways to make sure your backups are as effective as possible. Here are some tips and tricks for making sure your data is always safe:

• Automatic Backups: Regardless of the backup system or strategy you choose, the backup process needs to happen automatically on set intervals considering infrastructure workloads during the day and after hours. Avoid solutions that require you to remember to push a button or manually trigger the backup process.
• Backup regularly: The more often you backup, the less data you will lose if something goes wrong. Try to back up at least once a week, and more often if you are constantly adding new data.

-Backup everything: It’s better to backup too much than not enough. If you are unsure what to backup, err on the side of caution and include everything. You can always delete unwanted files from your backup later.

• Verify your backups: Regularly check your backups to make sure they are working correctly. This will help you avoid surprises when you need to restore your data.
• Use multiple backups: Don’t rely on just one or even two backups. Store backups in various locations and use multiple storage devices or cloud services for added protection. We have a great blog post on the benefits of the cloud.
• Keep your backups up to date: Make sure your backups are always up to date by regularly reviewing your backup and disaster recovery plans.

By following these tips, you can be sure that your data is always safe and accessible when you need it.

Conclusion
Backing up your data is essential to protecting your valuable information. Check out the available solutions in the market and their capabilities to determine if they are a good fit for your business needs. Backup regularly and test your backups often to make sure they are working properly. Use multiple backups in various locations for added protection and keep your backups up to date by regularly reviewing your backup and disaster recovery plan. We hope these tips gave you some fruit for thought on your business backup solutions.

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