Think backups are boring? They may be more interesting then you think. The majority of businesses are not equipped for a data disaster.
Let’s look at what InformationWeek found when they surveyed 500 respondents.
- 60% use two, three or even more different backup applications
- 66% still back up directly to tape
- 56% back up their servers at least weekly
- 39% do not encrypt any backup media
- 27% are confident in a reasonable time frame after a major disaster that takes out the main data center.
Though many companies do not have a secure data recovery and backup plan in tact, the industry is projected to grow. With the combination of BaaS (Backup as a Service) & RaaS (Recovery as a Service), the market is expected to grow $1 billion. Why is this?
Businesses and organizations that require data backup range from small to medium advertising shops, large manufacturing companies, historical and art museums and educational organizations to name a few. Whether your business is non-profit or for profit, your data needs to be protected. To backup or not to backup is not the question anymore, how to backup and what to backup is the baseline starting point.
Here are a few basics of data backup that should help in your search for the right backup solution for your business.
Data Backup Has Two Jobs
Storing— Every company and organization must store their data through backup, preferably offsite. With this, there will always be a duplicate of information, in case something happens to the original.
Restoring— Every company and organization must also be able to restore data from their backup, when information is lost.
Two Types of Data Backup
Real or Incremental Backup— This typically preserves a full image or range of your data, together with any changes made over time. This enables you to “roll back” the file or your system to a given point of time. The advantage here is that you can recover data plus previous versions back to the time you determine.
Simple Cloning or Replicating Backup— This is what most people think of when considering data backup. A straightforward copy of your data at the moment of backup without any changes completed prior to that time. Restoring the possible changes in your data is limited to the number of times data is backed up and to the extent that you maintain multiple copies of your data.
Backup operations have historically been optimized for the recovery process. A core component of data backup is disaster recovery and most IT providers consider these two processes closely related. In order to protect and maintain your company or organization’s data, you may need a DRaaS (Disaster Recovery as a Service) solution to optimize recovery time.