One of the finest moves any company owner can make is to invest in a cloud data backup solution. A natural disaster may strike your town, destroying your systems; an employee could spill a drink on her computer, destroying it; or someone will steal your equipment, but backing up data on the cloud makes these calamities far more bearable.
What is Cloud Backup?
Cloud backup is a service that uploads and stores data and applications on a business’s servers on a distant server. Businesses use cloud backup to keep files and data accessible in the case of a system outage, outage, or natural catastrophe. Business cloud backup works by duplicating and storing your server’s contents on another server in a different physical location. Depending on its needs, a company can back up part or all server files.
Customers generally use a web browser or a service provider’s control panel to back up and restore their data and apps. Existing data is backed up to an off-site server, making it accessible whenever and wherever you need it is very essential.
Data is synchronized or updated on a regular basis, mirroring your system in real-time. Cloud data backup not only protects your business from disasters, but it may also save you a lot of time and money when it comes to resume your operations. When it comes to picking a cloud data backup provider, there are factors to consider.
Storage
What much of cloud storage do you require? Cloud data backup services range from 1GB to limitless storage, providing organizations a variety of options to suit their needs. Because the quantity of space available is closely connected to service prices, it’s essential to figure out how much space you’ll need ahead of time so you can stay on budget.
Uptime
A cloud backup’s sole goal is to ensure that your data is accessible whenever you need it. The availability of a vendor is determined by many factors including its tier; Tier 1 services have 99.671 percent availability, while Tier 4 services have 99.995 percent availability.
The technology in place is what truly counts – higher levels offer pre-emptive measures like redundancy and industry-standard equipment to secure data, even if the percentages appear tiny at times. Tier 1 services, for example, are simply server rooms that house data backups, whereas Tier 4 services include superior power and temperature control to prevent downtime and maintain the highest degree of availability.
Disaster recovery
Vendors may make all the uptime promises they want, but unanticipated events like cyberattacks and natural catastrophes can shut down servers and render your data unavailable. During the 2012-2013 Christmas season, 26 U.S. banks’ websites were swamped by distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) assaults. Another time was when heavy thunderstorms knocked out Amazon’s northern Virginia servers, causing key services like Netflix, Instagram, and Pinterest to go down. Small companies, like huge organizations, may be harmed.
While downtime is unavoidable, it’s critical to ensure that the cloud data backup service you pick has a reliable disaster recovery strategy in place to get you back up as soon as possible. This can include everything from several backup locations to cyberattack mitigation.
Pricing
The majority of online backup price schemes are simple. Pricing is usually determined by the amount of storage and services provided and is invoiced on a monthly or annual basis. As a result, price varies greatly amongst providers. Carbonite, for example, offers 250GB of cloud storage with real and virtual servers, databases, live apps, and other sophisticated capabilities for $799.99 per year; Mozy’s cloud backup plans, on the other hand, start at only $9.99 per month and give 10GB of cloud storage.
Backup frequency
You spend your days working on files and updating information, so you need the assurance that the most recent versions are constantly backed up. As a result, it’s critical to understand how often and how your data is backed up to the cloud. If your data matters most to you, do not trust your hope in a free backup software.
Backup methods vary significantly among vendors, so some are more suited to your industry than others. Some services, for example, back up files as you make changes, thus this might entail anything from re-backing up the whole file to merely synchronizing files so that just changes you make are backed up. Some providers offer hourly, daily, monthly, or other predetermined backup frequencies, while others allow you to choose your own.
Security
Is your data safe on the cloud? Because cybercriminals are growing more adept, ask suppliers how they safeguard your data. At least 256-bit encryption at rest and during transit (in storage and while being transferred to and from the server), Secure Socket Layer (SSL), and local and off-site data storage are some of the features to look for.