Advice on Data Backup

To many business people even by today’s standard, data backup is still somewhat of a mystery and require some level of education. I get asked a lot to explain what is data backup and how it works. To some the answer may not be important but what is important is determining if they need this kind of service and how they determine this. Basically data backup is an insurance policy against a disaster and a strategy to recover.

My advice to business people who have data backup concerns,
if you can, have a professional come in and audit your backup procedure and write you a disaster recovery plan. Make sure you’re doing backups according to Best Practices. Make sure you are in compliance with all laws and regulations regarding your backup procedure and the protection of private information. Make sure you are backing up the right files. Re-audit every six months – every three if you can. Test your restore process every three to six months. Get your encrypted backups offsite on a regular basis. Make sure you can restore to a computer that did not do the original backup.
DO NOT hire a backup service based on price alone. Business cannot afford the risks of a $5/month backup service. Automate your backup procedure. Most online backup services for businesses offer an adequate level of automation. Have a written Disaster Recovery plan. Make sure staff members all know exactly what to do in a disaster. Keep contact info for all staff up to date, and away from your office. Once a year, test your disaster recovery plan. There are many adequate online backup solutions. DO NOT try to re-invent one for yourself. I see far too many disasters caused by people who tried to save money using free services, or free software. Your business is not worth that risk. Spend adequately on backup.