It’s easy to assume that your data and emails are automatically backed up in the cloud because of the many amazing benefits the cloud provides its users, like accessibility, scalability, cost-savings, and reliability. One would naturally think, “Well, since the cloud is so great with all its innovative and fancy features, my data must be protected!” However, this counterintuitive thinking provides you with a false sense of security that can be detrimental to your business. Don’t worry, there are ways to leverage smarter data backup and recovery in your cloud to protect your company’s critical data, and in the long term increase your ROI by 256%.
The Trouble with Data Security
Cybercrime is expected to cost the world $10.5 trillion annually by 2025, and this overwhelming number doesn’t include non-malicious attacks or unintentional threats, like mechanical malfunctions, accidental deletions, and natural disasters like floods, tornados, or fires. These events are becoming more and more unavoidable. This makes it essential for today’s modern businesses to have an effective data backup business continuity plan in place, so you are prepared when disaster strikes.
What’s even more disturbing (if that’s possible) is something that a lot of businesses don’t realize until it’s too late – that Microsoft 365 or Google does NOT automatically back up your data and email. If you’re one of those people who read the fine print (kudos to you), Google’s licensing agreement does not guarantee any backing up of your data whatsoever. In addition, Google Drive auto-empties your “recycling” folder every 30 days, and when that data is gone, it’s usually gone for good. Unfortunately, the ‘best’ outcome of a data loss event is unhappy staff and customers…and the worst is much worse.
Don’t Worry, Datto Has Your Back
The amount of data in the world was estimated to be 44 zettabytes at the dawn of 2020, and by 2025 that data is expected to grow to 463 exabytes globally. So, it’s safe to say that as online data continues to grow, the chances of a debilitating data loss happening to your business also increases. There’s no way to mitigate this risk except to have an effective and reliable data backup and recovery plan in place to protect yourself.
Thankfully, there’s a solution from Datto that restores, backs up, and protects your data, offering a simple and viable solution for you and your business. This solution enables you to restore individual deleted emails or files quickly and efficiently. Your data is backed up several times throughout the day and is available as far back as the service has been in place. This by far is one of the best and most cost-effective ways to ensure all of your Microsoft or Gmail data is backed up. It provides peace of mind that you will always be able to recover that one email or file that was accidentally deleted.
What Data Should Be Backed Up?
Start by reviewing your business’s data so you can make a more informed and knowledgeable decision on what data is essential to your organization. This is paramount to managing your backups successfully. First, identify your most important data. Obviously, financial records, personnel and customer data, and administrative files like leases, patents, etc. are irreplaceable and should be backed up. Yet some clients find, after completing a review of their company’s data, that not all of it necessarily needs to be backed up.
For instance, some clients discover that some of their historical data doesn’t need to be saved, and understandably, any erroneous data also doesn’t need to be. Use this as an opportunity to clean up your company’s data. Make a list of all the data your organization accesses on a daily, monthly, and quarterly basis to determine what data your company owns. This is a logical first step to help you break down your data and give you a clearer picture of what exactly should be involved in your backup plan.
Streamline & Centralize Data Backup and Recovery
As with all things business-related, streamlining is important to increase an organization’s productivity, quality, and efficiency. That’s why identifying what data needs to be backed up isn’t the only thing to consider. You also should examine ways to streamline and simplify your data backup and recovery processes. The objective is to leverage a single system rather than having multiple systems, which can get very confusing.
Leveraging a single backup solution like Datto will minimize complexity by combining all backups in one place. Consolidation means having less to manage. It is much easier than having backups done by different systems and software – where you’re more likely to only learn the hard way that perhaps one section of data was not backed up. Attempting to manage a complicated or out-of-control data backup system will inevitably result in errors and accidents. That’s why we recommend centralizing your data backup and recovery into Datto so your company is better protected.
If you’d like to review your options, our managed services team can help you guide you through the process of deciding what data needs backed up, and what backup deployment options would protect your company the best.
