World Backup Day was originally called World Backup Month. It was initiated in March 2005 by a hard-disk drive company called Maxtor (which got acquired by Seagate Technology). Later, Youngstown State University student Ismail Jadun created the World Backup Day which is observed on March 31st every year.
World Backup Day is a day to remind users of the increasing importance of data and regular backups.
But does that mean you have to backup only on this day? Of course not. Technically, every day should be considered Backup Day.
Having a solid backup strategy is of vital importance for any enterprise, including mid-market businesses, which store relatively large volumes of customer data. Your business is always at risk of a data breach or ransomware attack that could cause extensive loss of data. Then, there is the issue of compliance with the various data protection regulations which can cost companies not only money but their reputation as well.
In this blog, we will be discussing 4 key elements essential to establishing a solid strategy for the backup of your data.
1.Determine Your Backup Frequency
How often should you backup? Does it depend on the volume of the data you are producing? Should you have a standard schedule?
One of the most important steps in creating an effective backup plan is to determine how often your data needs to be backed up. For optimal protection, backing up every 24-hours is preferable; once a week is the bare minimum. Enterprises should always plan for the worst-case scenario. Coughing up exorbitant ransomware payments is no guarantee that you’ll get your data back.
2. Automate Backup
Forgot to run a backup? Lost large volumes of data? Afraid to face your boss now? This is a nightmare scenario most IT Professionals have probably faced once or more in their lifetime.
Humans are “HUMAN” and tend to make mistakes. To avoid this human error, automating the process should be a crucial element of your backup strategy.
3. Have Multiple Backups
For safeguarding data, taking the multiple backup route has proven to be advantageous for most enterprises. With ransomware sometimes infecting backups as well, having a single backup copy doesn’t cut it in today’s IT landscape. Having a local on-premises backup (which can be accessed quickly) along with another set of backup data in the cloud is probably the most fail-safe and fail-secure strategy an organization could implement.
4. Test Your Backup
Test, test, and test. Regular testing of backup can never be stressed enough. To “backup” this backup tip, let’s recollect the famous Toy Story 2 disaster story. In 1998, before the release of the movie Toy Story 2, an animator, intending to run a routine file cleanup, entered a command which deleted almost all the production files of the movie. At first, the creators did not panic as they were taking backups of the files every day. However, when they attempted to recover the files, they realized that the backup solution hadn’t worked. These were the days when doing a backup was an immensely complex procedure and testing it was almost impossible.
Fortunately, the technical director of the movie had a version of the backup which worked and the movie was restored and brought to the market. Imagine if they had lost a year’s work and a $100 million instead!
This story highlights some of the biggest ways a company could suffer without having a proper backup plan in place. In today’s age, a company’s survival depends on its data. Hence, building a solid backup strategy is essential to the health and wellbeing of the business.
Kaseya provides Kaseya Unified Backup (KUB) – which brings together the world’s best backup, ransomware protection, cloud-based storage and business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) services in a powerful, all-in-one, appliance-based platform. With KUB, you can stay protected from ransomware 24/7/365, get intelligent alerts to ensure efficiency and automate backup testing for guaranteed recovery.
Request a demo of Kaseya Unified Backup here.
