backupIt is a widely held belief that 70% of all small business will go bankrupt within 12 months of major data loss catastrophe if there isn’t an adequate backup strategy in active use. Not to be an alarmist or fear monger, but those are some pretty sobering statistics. Now put those numbers aside for a second and ask yourself one simple question,

Can my business survive if I lose my data?

If the answer is yes, then move on because this article is not for you. But if you are like the majority of business owners who rely on IT to run their business, data is the lifeblood of your operations. Regardless of your current backup situation, it is always good practice to review your strategy on an annual basis. If you do not have a strategy, here are some points to get you moving in the right direction.

 

  • Determine what data is critical you your business’ survival (ie, how screwed would you be if all of the sudden this data was gone). Yes this is a tedious but you’ll be glad you followed this advice in the event of loss.
  • Enforce a company policy that requires all employees to save critical data to the file server. Software can be purchased that will automate do this for you.
  • Backup your data once a day UNLESS the business specifically requires backups to occur more frequently.
  • Backup new or changed files Monday to Thursday (Monday to Saturday if you run a 7 day/week business).
  • Off site backups are vital and should be performed once a month.
  • Use the cloud to host your monthly backups (monthly backups happen on the last Friday/Sunday of every month). Yes the cloud is a new concept to most small business owners, but its high availability and relatively low cost will be essential to getting you back up and running quickly in the event of a major data loss.
  • Perform test restores on your data backups once a month. Creating the backups is only part of the secret. You should also test your backups to see if data can be restored as well.
  • Enlist the help of a trusted IT Service partner to help you make sure all your bases are covered.

 

Data failures and loss have a habit of occurring at the worst time possible. It’s not a matter of if a critical system will lose data; it’s a matter of when. The best thing you can do for your business is to mitigate this risk by spending time ensuring your data is adequately protected.