Backups are a critical part of any company’s data management and security. They allow for some breathing room in case of a hardware or software failure, comply with company standards, and generally provide a safety net in case the unexpected happens.
In fact, keeping and updating regular backups should be inherent to the business continuity and disaster recovery policy of any company. Of course, the best way to make sure that these are used to their full potency is to keep redundancies, particularly different kinds of data backups. There are two generally accepted types of data backup: offline and online storage.
Offline Backups
Offline backups may take the form of your company’s own local servers, local storage devices such as hard drives and memory sticks, or even hard copies of important documents. These have been the traditional methods of storing and safekeeping data, and they’ve worked pretty well for most companies for a while.
They offer a tangible, concrete proof of the company’s data, which can be extremely useful if you want easy access if you’re in the vicinity. However, this type of convenience can also be this system’s biggest flaw: it’s only accessible to people on-site.
Keeping Online Copies of Your Data
On the other hand, online data backup storage comes with a variety of benefits that could easily work with any existing company infrastructure. In addition to providing the digital flexibility that any setup needs, online or web-based copies of your data can help you quickly recover in case of any data loss.
Keeping your data on online servers such as the Cloud isn’t just a good recovery measure when things can go wrong; it’s also a great way to ensure that operational costs remain low. Storing data, especially huge amounts of it, can quickly drain any IT department’s capability and budget. If left unchecked, the ballooning amount of data that needs to be managed can overwhelm them completely.
Security Issues and Flaws
Of course, the main reason why you should still be wary of web-based storage of your company’s data is the threat of it being breached. No security system is perfect: only good enough. And while hackers may be foiled in their attempts today, it doesn’t mean that they won’t try tomorrow.
This doesn’t mean that web-based backups are unsecured, though. You’ll just need to find a partner with a stringent security policy that you feel can protect your data. Another additional precaution you can do is to only offload the data points that aren’t critical to your company, and keep everything else stored within your private servers.
As far as storage is concerned, there are definite advantages and disadvantages to choosing where exactly do you keep your data. However, it is important to realize that the benefits can be extremely helpful to your company, especially if you’re looking to scale operations upward.
Web-based company backups should never be used on their own, but should absolutely be a strong contender in any company’s data management policies. Not only will it allow precious IT time to be devoted to the things it should be worrying about—like internal company operations—but it can also be extremely helpful when the time comes to work with the data concerned.
