Don’t let a backup mistake hurt your organization. Here are some common data backup mistakes you shouldn’t make.)
Data backup is your last resort if you lose your data to cybercriminals, viruses, negligence and natural disasters. What will you do if you find that your backup system is not working?
In one sentence—it will be a huge shock for you. Losing your data backup is more disturbing than losing your data. There are many ways to lose your data backup.
Therefore, make sure you are not committing these grave mistakes that can risk your data backup.
Not Storing Data at a Separate Physical Site:
Storing backups at your primary business site means you might face problems while recovering them when the need occurs. This is because they will be vulnerable to the same risk as your primary files.
Therefore, off-site backups are an optimal way of ensuring the ability to restore data.
Make sure to physically secure backups, or you lose your valuable data to hackers, negligence or the actions of an unhappy employee.
Not Using the Appropriate Tools for Backup:
Not all data sets are the same, so are their tool.
For example, some tools are used for built-in cloning capabilities that act as “backup” but which can consume the same storage as the complete environment. This is ideal if your virtual machines aren’t changing more often, but if your environments are constantly upgraded and you want to create a new copy every time, it won’t be that useful.
The point is here that you should choose the right tools to meet your backup needs. Ponder over the applications that are important to your business, and check your data protection solutions of choice can incorporate with them efficiently.
Not Being Far-Sighted:
The data needs to grow with your business. Therefore, it requires planning. If your data or business is expanding rapidly and you are using the same backup capacity, it may be problematic for you in the long run. This is because it can simply affect your ability to protect your company’s most valuable data.
Not Looking Beyond to Tape:
Many organizations use tape to perform data backup. After all, they are cheap, durable and fast performance. However, the tape can be much slower if your backup data is spread across hundreds of tapes. You can use both tape and disk to strike the right balance between performance and costs. While old records and archived data will be on your cheaper tape, your valuable data can be kept on the disk.
Not Testing Your Backup Frequently:
Think data backup as the spare tyre of your car. What will you do if you found that the spare tyre of a car is punctured when the emergency strikes?
The same thing can be said about your data.
God forbid if you find that your backup data on the tapes are corrupted or the data is missing or outdated. This would be an insult to the injury when you are looking to restore the data. Therefore, get your data backup checked frequently for errors and malfunction.
Even small businesses with limited data needs should get their backups tested every three months.
Bottom Line:
So these are the mistakes you should avoid at any cost. After all, data is the backbone of your organization. If you lose it, backup is the only way to get it back. Therefore, it is important to protect your backup like your data.
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