What Are Backup and Disaster Recovery Services?
Backup and disaster recovery services are two distinct IT support services that work together to provide futureproofing, business continuity, and cybersecurity benefits for organisations and individuals.
The two are often employed simultaneously, but the difference between backup and disaster recovery is that backup is securing files in case of an emergency, and disaster recovery is getting the files back after the emergency has happened.
In this article we’ll explain more about both backup and disaster recovery solutions, and their benefits.
What is Cloud Backup?
Cloud backup is a solution the keeps files and assets safer than simply saving them in cloud or on-premises storage. Cloud backup saves data at regular intervals and securely stores it in cloud servers that are not on the premises they came from, and are protected with robust cyber, and physical, security.
On-premises digital storage such as hard drives and servers are risky due to their physical presence and can only be backed-up with other physical storage that could be lost or damaged.
Cloud-based software like Microsoft 365 or applications such as SharePoint, are valuable productivity and collaboration tools but if something happened to those systems, the cloud backup isn’t likely to be affected. Human error and cybersecurity attacks are a very real threat to data storage, could you afford to lose all the data your company has? Cloud backup that is separate to cloud storage, reduces the risk of losing precious data.
What is Disaster Recovery?
Disaster recovery is the process of finding and reintroducing saved data, back to the system it was saved from. It takes place after data that has been properly backed up, needs to be recovered due to the latest version being accidentally or maliciously tampered with, or lost.
Disaster recovery is different to ‘un-deleting’ a Word document someone accidently deleted in SharePoint; it’s a painstaking, complex, and lengthy procedure that requires advanced technical skills. It is incredibly valuable and can prevent an organisation suffering the extreme consequences of complete or partial data loss.
Policies and procedures are produced during the set-up of disaster recovery, with extra care taken to identify data that is critical for business operations. This means both the client and managed service provider like Fuse CS, know what files and documents need to be prioritised during recovery – speeding up the process of recovery from disaster.
What are the benefits of data backup and disaster recovery?
There are several ways that having data backup and disaster recovery services add value to any organisation, whether business, charity, or educational institution:
- Flexibility
- Scalability
- Prevent data loss
- Enhances customer trust
- Fast recovery
- Reduce costs
- Avoids data sprawl
Flexibility
Cloud backup services usually offer licences that can be customised to the data type or needs of the business. For example, some data will need to be backed-up on a 30-day cycle, and others need to backed-up each time an edit is made. Typical options include backups every 7/14/30/60/90 days.
Scalability
Disaster recovery and cloud backup solutions offer scalable options that mean organisations can grow or reduce licences and services as they are needed.
Prevents data loss
After a ransomware attack, disaster recovery solutions make it easier for organisations to turn down ransom requests because they are not concerned about getting their data back, from an operational perspective.
From a compliance perspective, some data legislation such as GDPR requires organisations to keep particular types of data for specific amounts of time. Cloud backup and disaster recovery make that possible regardless of whether it is accidently deleted or maliciously removed from the original source.
Enhances customer trust
Whoever uses your services, they put trust in you to protect and process their data safely and according to data protection regulations. By implementing cloud data backups and disaster recovery solutions, you are making a statement to your customers that you take data protection seriously.
Fast recovery
Although it is a complex process, having disaster recovery solutions in place means your company will benefit from getting that data back, much quicker than if there was no backup in place.
Reduce costs
Backing up company data and having a method of retrieving it, is more cost effective than potentially losing everything, which could have catastrophic financial consequences.
Avoids data sprawl
Data sprawl is when the amount of data that organisations create every day becomes out of control, and the difficulties that causes regarding storage space and costs. Implementing data backups require a careful planning process that maps out and organises data. This creates opportunities to reduce unnecessary data, improve data organisation, and reduce costs of storage or software that isn’t being used.
The less cloud storage that is being used unnecessarily, can also reduce carbon emissions and be more environmentally friendly.
What is the process of getting backup and disaster recovery services?
As we mentioned earlier in this article, backup and disaster recovery are two different services, however using them both is usually the best way forward as they are most effective when working together.
These are a service that many managed IT service providers include as part of their packages, like at Fuse CS, where we offer licences for backups that are tailored to your business needs. We also provide a disaster recovery service that again, can be customised depending on the scale of your backup solutions.
Getting set up involves a consultation and audit process where our team of experts will assess the current data situation and make recommendations for secure backup. Digital disaster recovery is just one part of a business continuity plan that organisations put together in case of emergencies. Our team work with our clients to ensure the disaster recovery process for digital and hardware assets conforms to their established business continuity plan or business insurance policies. If these safeguarding policies are not in place already, we also work with our clients to help build them.
There are two main elements that need to be in place first, before data backup and recovery solutions can be applied – secure cloud storage and good cybersecurity practices.
If you haven’t already moved to cloud-based storage, our team of cloud infrastructure experts will explain and strategise migrating to the cloud. Cloud-based data backup and recovery can only be implemented when the data is already stored in the cloud.
Robust cybersecurity must be in place across the whole organisation as any vulnerabilities can be exploited and possibly negate the benefits of backing-up the data and being able to recover it.
Learn more about the data backup and disaster recovery solutions that we offer at Fuse CS to get started with futureproofing and safeguarding your business from the disaster now.
About the author
Fuse is a Microsoft Partner, based in Northampton. We help organisations of all sizes to maximise IT efficiencies through the use of Microsoft cloud computing solutions.
