For most small businesses, your intellectual property, or data, is vital to the success of your business. Even so, you’d be surprised how many times we’ve completed IT assessments and found that a potential client hadn’t completed a successful backup in months. You don’t want to find out that your company data has not been backed up after your server’s hard drive has died.
Three tips for ensuring that your data is getting backed up:
1. Use real backup software for your server, not just the software that ships with Windows. Most business class backup software allows you to not only backup your company’s data, but also will alert you if your backups are failing. This feature will give you more insight and take the guesswork out of your backup strategy.
2. Consider a BDR (Backup & Disaster Recovery)appliance. It’s the latest in backup technology, a BDR is a device that sits on your network and takes a snapshot of your company’s server every 15 minutes. It not only stores your data onsite, but sends a copy offsite to the cloud nightly. When your server goes offline, the BDR appliance will actually become your server until the production server is repaired. To top it off, if your building is destroyed you can actually access your server in the cloud. This provides complete continuity for your business in case of a disaster.
3. Investigate. If you have suspicions that your company’s data is not being backed up properly, ask your IT provider. If you are not happy with the response, schedule a network audit to verify. Most IT Providers will perform a free onsite IT assessment. These assessments can reveal hidden problems on your network and give you the opportunity to right the ship.