The Importance of Cloud Backup for Businesses

The Importance of Cloud Backup for Businesses

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What would happen if you were suddenly unable to access customer information, invoices, projects, marketing plans, or budgets? As a business owner, one of your most important assets is your data, which can be easy to lose. Regular data backup is critical to your operation.

In the past, best practice would have been to regularly back data up on a tape, to be stored offsite in case of a disaster at the office. This was a costly method and could result in downtime whilst waiting for the tapes to be sent back to the business. As backups would only be carried out weekly or monthly, a significant amount of data could also still be lost if a disaster occurred. Thankfully, cloud backup has solved many of the shortcomings associated with backup and disaster recovery.

Efficient Disaster Recovery

Possible risks to your business’s data, include natural disasters, hardware malfunction, accidental deletion, and ransomware attacks. It is important to have a disaster recovery plan in place to avoid significant downtime or loss of data, and to store backups offsite. With an offsite cloud backup solution, disaster recovery is efficient and streamlined. It is as simple as logging in to restore your data, rather than travelling to collect it, or having it sent via courier, which also carries the risk of loss or damage.

A cloud backup solution enables you to select exactly what data is backed up and how often. You may require daily backups for frequently updated data, or you may decide weekly is sufficient. Having the option to frequently backup data significantly reduces the amount of lost data.

Predictable Costs

Businesses collect and store a massive amount of data, and if you manage your own backup storage, you’ll know it can be costly. Between buying storage media, storing it offsite and managing version control, the entire process is difficult to manage and to scale. Cloud backup simplifies this process as everything is automated, it does not take up physical space, and the cost is typically a monthly fee based on the amount of data being stored.

Increased Security and Compliance

There are many factors to consider when selecting the best method of backup for a business. Your key consideration should always be the security of the solution, to avoid falling victim to a cyberattack. Using a cloud backup solution allows your business to rely on the expertise of backup providers.

Often cloud backup is end-to-end encrypted, which greatly reduces the risk of a data breach. Some backup providers also have built in ransomware protection. This means that even if a business is hit with a ransomware attack, the ransomware will be automatically removed, and the system will revert to a previous backup before the ransomware can spread across the system. This limits downtime and can save a business hundreds of thousands of pounds compared to paying the ransom.

If your business has to meet strict compliance requirements, such as GDPR or HIPAA, cloud backups are also a method of ensuring you retain financial and other information for the required time periods, even in the event of a disaster.

Regardless of the size of your business, or what industry you are in, backup should be a top priority to limit downtime and data loss and ensure the longevity of your business. If you think moving to the Cloud may be the right IT solution for your business, and you want to find out more, contact Extech Cloud for a no-obligation feasibility study today.