If you’ve ever had a major IT outage in your business or accidentally deleted a file, you’ll know how vital an IT backup system is.
With cyber-security threats and ransomware attacks increasing, it’s become even more critical to have a modern backup system in place for your business.
In this article, we’ll be outlining two of the most crucial features of a modern-day backup system and why they are essential for a business of any size.
As a bonus, we’ll let you in on a little secret. (Hint – it’s testing your backup system works).
1) Cloud and local backup.
Most modern backup systems have replaced older tape-based systems.
Back in the day, the IT guy/girl or someone with access to the server room was tasked with changing a tape almost daily.
This included storing the tape in a fireproof box or something similar.
If the business was risk-averse, these might have been taken a step further with the tapes moved offsite.
Nowadays, almost all modern back solutions are cloud-based. The benefit of cloud back up is obvious – the backups are transferred offsite up to the cloud and most cloud providers replicate their storage between datacentres and continents.
If there’s ever any risk of the backup being damaged, there’s data replication taking place in the cloud.
2) Ransomware protection
The majority of phishing emails that come into your inbox have one purpose.
To try and inflict a ransomware virus on your internal IT network.
Ransomware can devastate a business if the backup is not working correctly. Ransomware is destructive and will run wild on your IT network encrypting any file it comes into contact with.
There are two options when recovering from a ransomware attack – the first is to pay the ransom. Something that we would never recommend as it’s not guaranteed you’ll get the unlock code for your encrypted files. The second is to recover your data from a working backup.
Of course, you do need a working backup to be able to restore, and this is something, not all IT companies check (ESP always check!). While the backup software will tell you it has completed a job successfully what it won’t tell you is if your restore process actually works.
If you would like an independent check of your back up system to make sure it’s working then get in touch with us today!
