Would you like to sleep easy at night knowing that your business critical data is being well cared for? A recent customer of ours told me she felt smug when she listened to people talk about ransomsware viruses and cyber security because our support and back-up procedures gave her total peace of mind. And she’s not a large corporate but a micro-business. It’s important to remember data back-up is crucial to us all.
Peace of mind is not that hard to achieve. Here are my five key questions to start creating your bespoke data back-up solution and getting a good night’s rest!
1. How Often Should You Back-Up? This is completely dependent on your business need. We have companies that back-up in real time as a document is changed and others who back-up once a day. It’s about making an informed decision balancing the cost of the back-up over the cost to your business of losing a day’s data. If your company inputs large amounts of data every day, you might want to think about a real time back-up or a four hour back-up.
2. How Should You Back-Up? There are two rules to back-up best practice. You should have an offsite and offline back-up. These could be one and the same thing if you want to take responsibility for removing a back-up every night. Usually, we find customers take the automated option of an offsite back-up using the internet and then complete their own offline manual back-up to an external hard drive. So if the worst comes to the worst and a few days pass without a manual back-up, you know the automated back-up is still happening every night.
3. How Many Versions Should You Keep? Again this is dependent on your business need but we find most customers will either take 14 day or 30 day retention. This means you can roll a system back or locate a file in the version it was up to 30 days ago. If you are using a program like Dropbox or One Drive, it is best to check that their retention rate fits your requirements.
4. Should You Test Your Back-Up? Yes, yes, and yes! Think of it as your Data Back-Up MOT. Every 3 months you should pick a file or folder or application and ensure you can restore all your data from your back-up. You are only as good as that back-up so it’s very important to test it before it’s time to rely on it for real.
5. Should You Monitor Your Back-Up? As above, it’s really important that you know your back-up has happened successfully. There are a range of products out there for this but we recommend Easus for businesses of all sizes from micro to larger SME. This is true peace of mind and from only £5 per month.
Please join our Facebook Live this Wednesday 7th March on Data Back-Up or if you have missed it check out the video on our Facebook page. Let’s all get Back-Up Happy!
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"Emerald has become our go-to for all our technology requirements. If we think we need to address an issue, we contact them and explain, and they suggest a solution not only for immediate use, but also looking at the longer term picture for our business too.
They keep a constant eye on our systems and usage and suggest when appropriate courses of action should be taken to enhance our working environment"
THE HITCHMAN STONE PARTNERSHIP
"In the past, we had experienced problems with IT companies who had the ability over promise and under deliver.
This was not the case with Emerald. Emerald are now our trusted partner for all of our IT support needs. They offer honest, impartial advice that is delivered in a language even the novice can understand.
Having one number that our team can call with any IT or telephone concerns makes such a difference, especially when this is backed up with prompt resolution."
Richard Hall - Inn Express
"We've been working with Emerald for many years and their support has been invaluable on all aspects of IT from maintenance of systems & phones to new purchases and solutions.
Emerald are professional and their services are precise and innovative where needed. Their customer support is outstanding. Highly recommended."
Jeryl Stone - Hitchman Stone
"When your whole business rests on a cloud-based system, having a flexible, cost-effective, secure, and well- maintained solution is what helps you sleep better at night. That's what Emerald is here for"
Leech & Co Solicitors Data Centre Backup
