Data backup is a requirement for every type of business. With data volumes that continue to grow, and legal requirements that have become more stringent, the traditional-based tape backup is today no longer a cost-effective or reliable way to match up to compliance levels.
1. Reliability
When using disk-to-disk technology, you are offered the potential to back up your data on disk-drives, which are a lot more reliable when compared to tapes. When the backup completes, you are assured that your data is accessible and secure on these disk drives. With the tapes you are not guaranteed that the data is still usable until you attempt to try and restore it, and by then it’s obviously too late. As much as 71 per cent of restores from tapes will contain failures.
2. Breadth of Offering
The offerings from service providers vary widely. Some of these are primarily designed for consumers while others are dedicated to enterprise data-centres. Select the solution which scales along with offering you the levels of service that you need, such as for a business selling SWL2500EFR Yuasa batteries. Delta-block and de-duplication technologies improve performance, save you money and lower your data footprint. You should also establish whether their de-duplication offerings are at block level or file level. The solution must be able to back up laptops and PCs along with your applications.
3. Security
60 per cent of organisations that use tapes fail to encrypt backups. Encryption use with the tapes causes the backups to run very slowly and in most cases will take too long in order to fit into the backup window. For this reason, many people make the decision to turn the encryption off, which results in security risks. Even with “physical” safety of the disk-to-disk backup, encryption is always vital. Consider a 256-bit AES and find the solutions which will encrypt all your data during the stages of transmission along with storage.
4. Accessibility
Many organisations waste a lot of working hours waiting on their tapes. You need immediate access to backups, eliminating time that would have been spent on the physical transport. A restore should only take a few minutes and not many hours or even days. You should find a way to work alongside your data rather than waiting for it. Ensure that the service provider you have chosen is able to meet your RTO (Recovery Time Objective) and RPO (Recovery Point Objectives) which will determine the speed at which you are able to recover data along with maintaining business continuity.
5. Cost Effectiveness
On average companies lose £64,000 for each lost hour of activity. When you start to work this out, these losses are significant. This is why disk-to-disk makes more sense. Unlike tape, the handlings costs are near to zero, no rushed deliveries, accessing, loading, locating or having to repeat these steps. There is also one benefit that you cannot factor in directly and that is reputation. Security and reliability will make incalculable differences with even one avoided failure or breach.
6. Compliance
Many companies have issues with satisfying security, data retention and security regulations. How can you recognise one of the strong compliance partners? They will be happy to show you the table for regulatory requirements, along with listing how their services, technology and products assist you to satisfy them. Taking this one step further, choose one of the service providers that is accredited to store NHS or government data and is also accredited to assist you in complying with these regulatory requirements.
7. Disaster Recovery
Many companies do not have a tested and comprehensive plan in place for disasters. You cannot state that your protection for data is finalised until you have completed your own disaster-recovery plan that is tested and complete. The backup service provider that you have chosen should offer you a combination of products and a professional service team that will assist you in preparing for the worst-case scenarios. Ensure they will be able to assist you with preparing for worst-case scenarios. Also ensure they are able to assist you with configuring your backups, which will help you to rebound fast. The best types of service providers are the ones that will offer you training to handle disasters with confidence, based on the actual configuration of your company.
8. Ease Of Use
Some companies can’t or don’t manage backups from a single place. Managing your own backup environment needs to be simple, and software that you are using should do away with any guesswork which might result in data loses. You need to be able to confirm that your data is always protected across the entire network that includes remote offices, by just viewing the dashboard.
9. Customer Support
Data Backup service providers will offer different types of product support. Customer support needs to be one of the primary selling points of the service provider. You need to find a provider that you can rely on when you need them most.