It’s rare for a week to go by without reading a story in the news about a company or government agency experiencing a data security problem. But while most of us think about high-profile cases of hacking, such as Target’s credit card data debacle, the most common risks that organizations face are caused by poor infrastructure rather than malicious attempts to access proprietary information. And when data is irretrievably lost, the culprit is usually an ineffective backup strategy.
Not backing up data – including everything from emails to financials – is basically IT malpractice. There is absolutely no excuse for not having systems in place to save information in the event of a power outage, equipment damage, natural disaster, or accidental deletion. In today’s world, where employees, contractors, and others use everything from iPhones to mainframe computers to access and modify data, it is important for organizations to have the right infrastructures to keep information safe no matter where it “lives†day-to-day.
There are number of backup strategies that companies can employ, but storing valuable information off-site is probably the most effective one. That’s because even the best on-site systems are vulnerable to fires, floods, and other disasters. Most of the best offsite data backup centers are built like Fort Knox – but that’s only half the story. The other critical part of the equation is colocation – storing data in multiple locations congruently and in real time. This makes it almost impossible to lose key information because it exists in many places around the country, or even run the world, to create redundancy and provide protection even in a worst-case scenario.
There are lots of solutions on the market that protect data, but if it doesn’t offer multisite backup and real-time updates, don’t waste your time looking at them. After all, your information is your business.