What would you do if you lost all your data? Data is quite possibly the most important asset when it comes to your business, and you should be looking after it. Losing your files is way more common than you’d think, which is why March 31 is World Backup Day; to spread awareness of the importance of backup. Six security figures say why it’s imperative you should back up your data.
Gary Watson, CTO and Founder at Nexsan, says: “In 2018 backup and data recovery is critical, and it’s not enough for it to simply, well, back up. Evolved options like archive storage solutions can help to eliminate data loss as well as provide added layers of security from tampering, corruption and ransomware – business necessities in today’s threat landscape. Archive storage can also help drive cost and performance benefits by allowing for greater long-term retention of data. A fully comprehensive data backup strategy should include business continuity, data protection and enhanced security features on top of fast and efficient storage.”
Your responsibility
Nigel Tozer, Solutions Marketing Director EMEA at Commvault, says: “Many organisations are turning to the public cloud as an enabler for data services and applications to provide customers with the best possible service. But equally, many are also forgetting that they also have their own responsibilities with regard to security and importantly, backup. There’s no use collecting and using ever-increasing amounts of data to drive new business and services if it isn’t properly protected.
“World Backup Day serves as a reminder for businesses that the most important part of looking after their data is backing it up,” continues Tozer. “Today, I urge every business with data in the cloud to check their contracts and find out exactly what is in the small print. It will normally state ‘your data, your responsibility’. Thinking that cloud availability is the same as backup could mean that you’re actually less protected than you ever were with your own on-premises systems. Availability won’t help with human error, corruptions or indeed, ransomware. Organisations need to think about going ‘back to backup’, or face up to the consequences.”
Jake Madders, Director at Hyve Managed Hosting says: “Company data is one of the most valuable assets for any organisation and should be at the forefront of your business agenda – yet for many, that just isn’t the case. World Backup Day is a great opportunity to reflect on where yours is stored as well as what the consequences might be should you lose control of it. That means it’s absolutely vital to have a backup solution in place to ensure that your data and systems are consistently available.
“Good managed service providers, for example, should offer a range of solutions that protect data and applications as part of a wider IT strategy. The best enterprise-class backup options are often designed specifically for use with multi-platform environments, meaning greater flexibility and choice for you. What’s more, using a securely managed cloud for offsite backups means that you only ‘pay for what you use’ so offer great value for money, so what’s not to like?”
Neil Stobart, VP of Global Systems Engineering at Cloudian, says: “The world is obsessed with unstructured data. Growth rates are mind boggling, as we all collect and keep data from just about everywhere and everything, from images and videos to social media and email. But to keep all this data safe, it’s really important to adopt storage technologies which are geared to our shared, scale-out, unstructured future. Traditional, hierarchical file storage, for example, is limited by its ability to grow compared to alternatives such as object storage, which is favoured by the biggest cloud providers around the world. A safer world for our data is one where we embrace the rapidly changing data landscape.”
Uptime
Hubert Da Costa, VP and GM EMEA at Cradlepoint, pictured, says: “We are all familiar with the need to back up our data, but often a back up plan for the network is given less thought. No wired connection can deliver 100 per cent uptime. The question is not whether your business will lose Internet connectivity, it’s when.
“So how do you protect your organisation from loss and disruption when it happens? When your wired Internet connectivity experiences a service disruption (in some areas this happens several times a month) your business is exposed to risks of lost revenue, productivity and customer experience issues. Upgrading to a more robust wired connection is one possible solution – but it’s expensive and is still susceptible to outages and service disruption. An alternative option is to bridge the inevitable gap with wireless WAN failover. This option is quick and easy to deploy.
“Ultimately when network connections fail, there will be a loss of productivity, brand credibility and revenue. In my experience, there are few businesses that can afford to take that risk.”
The effect of GDPR
Matt Bryars, CEO and co-founder at Aeriandi, says: “With less than two months to go until GDPR comes into force, World Backup Day this year holds a particular significance. Storing sensitive customer data will soon be a more complex issue, and companies will be facing wider management and reporting responsibilities. We’re going to see a greater appreciation of RegTech – technology specifically designed to help companies meet compliance requirements. RegTech is already showing its worth in complex compliance areas. The voice space is a great example. For companies that manage huge volumes of call recordings and ‘card not present’ customer payments, RegTech has become the only effective way of achieving compliance.
“GDPR will give people new rights to access, view and delete their personal data. How will companies ensure they can offer this capability? How will they even know what data they hold? RegTech solutions will likely be the only way many organisations will be able to address the storage, backup and access challenges they’ll be facing in just a few weeks time. Those that fail to take securing this data seriously will not only be risking the safety of their customers’ most sensitive information, but also gambling with their own business reputation.”
