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Backup Strategy

IT Services & IT Solutions Mississauga & Toronto

 

 

 

Backup Strategy

 

Here are some best practices to follow when approaching your company’s data backup

 

Ensure that backups are taken on a regular timeline

The principle to follow for whether your backup timeline is dense enough is to ask yourself: “If the entire office IT was knocked down right now, would we be able to restore everything to working condition?” If the answer is no, then your backups need to be taken more often. Backups can be taken as often as multiple times a day to once every few weeks. Not all your data needs to follow the same timeline either –  while critical data may need to be backed up very often, archived data that is not accessed or changed as frequently can instead be backed up on a less intensive schedule.

 

Organization is Key

The key to a good data backup strategy is organized management. You or your IT department should know when backup are being taken, what is being backed up, and through what method. This way, restoration efforts become much less time-consuming in the case of a disaster.

 

Balancing Cost with the Retention Timeline

An organization may require dozens of terabytes of storage space, depending on its head-count and industry. It is both costly and inefficient to keep all backups of your data indefinitely. Therefore, it is important to consider how long you will keep your backups when designing your strategy. Your specific industry’s data retention standards should also be researched prior to designing your solutions.

Encryption adds peace-of-mind

When keeping backups of your data in off-site premises, it is important to keep your information encrypted, so a compromise of that data storage facility does not mean that your data is also in danger. Data breaches are becoming an increasingly common occurrence as cyberattackers automate their attacks. In this environment, it is as important as ever to ensure that your sensitive information cannot be easily stolen.

 

Off-site protection

Keeping all your backups in the same location as your computers is not recommended, as it does not protect you from in-house disasters. Instead, it is important to maintain off-site backups of your data, either on a physical server or cloud-based environment.

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