Data Backup and Recovery: Ensuring Business Continuity

Your data is the backbone of your business. Whether it’s customer information, financial records, or proprietary business data, losing this critical asset can lead to significant financial losses, reputational damage, and operational disruptions.

Regarding your data, you must have a plan that protects you from all the hazards you face, whether they are from technical disasters – a failed or corrupted hard drive, a server failure, a lost essential file – or from a virus, trojan, or ransomware.

Principles of Data Backup and Recovery

These principles are simple:

• The data must be replicated to a separate storage device outside your internal storage.
• The data must be replicated to a device outside your network and off-premises
• The off-network storage should be both:
  • Air-gapped – not open to internet access. Most data services offer virtual air-gapping, it is protected by stringent security measures
  • Immutable – immutable means that the data cannot be altered, deleted, or tampered with once it has been written
• The data must be recoverable – a backup scheme is worthless if the data is not recoverable.
• The backups should be automated on a regular schedule
• There should always be multiple backup versions available, with an overwrite cycle sufficient for your business needs. This requirement will have a direct effect on the size of the data pool or drive you have available for backup data. De-duplication and incremental backups in the software used will seriously reduce the amount of storage needed.
  Individual files should be easily accessible in case an essential file is accidentally deleted or gets corrupted in some manner. This, along with multiple backup versions available, will ensure that losing a file in this manner is merely a hiccup and not a disaster.

How to Implement Backups with These Principles in Mind

There are several ways to implement backup and recovery, some better than others.

1. Replicating to an external USB drive and taking it off-site daily

• Pros: seemingly simple and inexpensive
• Cons: USB drives can become inoperable over time, and you could lose access to your data; keeping it in your car’s trunk – especially in winter – or taking it home relies on individual memory which can be faulty on a consistent basis; the data is not immutable even if encrypted; the drive is subject to loss of theft; this method is unlikely to pass a cybersecurity audit for insurance purposes.
• NOT RECOMMENDED

2. Hybrid on-site and off-site storage

Using a high-reliability NAS (Network Attached Storage) device, data is sent from the internal storage quickly at network speeds and then sent to an off-site facility (cloud or remote site) for air-gapped and immutable storage.

• Pros: very safe and secure; high reliability; room for many days/months of daily backups if sized properly; expandable; automatic; scheduled
• Cons: A bit more expensive than the previous method

3. Third-party Services

There are third party services available that provide backups directly to the cloud, store it air-gapped and immutable, and are easily accessible.

Some of these third parties also provide additional services that replicate data to a provided appliance that allows your server(s) to fail over to that appliance if a server fails for some reason and spin up the server(s) there. These services also replicate data to the cloud with the ability to spin up the server(s) in the cloud during a geographic disaster (hurricane, fire, flood, etc.) and run in the cloud for a set time.

• Pros: highly reliable; flexible; cost effective; air-gapped and immutable data storage; many have no restrictions on data size; bonus of server failover in a disaster; automated; scheduled.
• Cons: sometimes slightly more cost; can have a complex set up; may need to purchase a special appliance for some services.

Workstations or Just Servers and Large Storage Units?

In most cases, the best practice for workstation backup is to use the local server (if present) to backup workstation data so that when the backups are processed, workstation data is backed up from there. Sometimes workstations, especially in engineering and design, store large quantities of data on their own and aren’t suitable to back up to the server. In this case, workstations can be backed up separately. Alternatively, services like iCloud, Google Drive, OneDrive, AWS etc., can be used to store workstation data.

What Good Regular Backups Can Protect Against

Backups can protect against more than just data loss. If properly selected and implemented, it can keep the business running with only minor operational interruption. Your customers may have no inkling that you suffered any kind of disaster.

Here are some of the situations where proper data backups can save your company:

A Minor Loss of Data

This is usually when someone accidentally deletes a file, sometimes something they were working on and needs it back to continue work. It could also be a file that somehow became corrupted. No matter the cause, if a single file or a small group of files needs to be recovered, if your backups are up to date, the data hasn’t been overwritten (the time factor) and is searchable through the backup software, recovery can be accomplished quickly. How quickly it will be dependent on the system selected for the backup system and the expertise of the person making doing restoration.

A Significant Loss of Data

If a data drive becomes unreadable for some reason, the data backup provides the mechanism for copying the data to a new drive to get back up and running. These are usually hardware issues – bad drive, bad drive controller, etc. If there are no backups, the old drive can be sent to a specialty company that recovers data from the old drive. While this can be effective, it is both time consuming and very expensive – much greater than having good backups.

A Total Loss of Data

If there is a disaster, i.e.: fire, flood, storm or theft, having good backups is essential to being able to continue to do business. More importantly, having restorable backups is essential. If the restoration of data isn’t tested regularly, it may not work in a crisis and ruin your day.

Ransomware

Ransomware encrypts all your data and requires payment of money, usually crypto currency, to get the key to unlock it. This is the reason for having air-gapped and immutable data. Under normal circumstances, when the ransomware virus is unleashed, it spreads rapidly throughout the network. If your offsite backup data is connected to the network, it will be encrypted too, leaving you with no option but to pay the ransom. If you are air-gapped, this won’t happen. If someone calls and asks to have the data changed or the airgap released, there is another layer of strict protocols that must be fulfilled before that is allowed.

Server Failure

If a server fails for some reason, you could lose all your data. Your backup will be critical to getting the server working again. If you must replace the physical hardware, it will be several days before it is bought, shipped and fully implemented, so several days of work are lost. Several of the services mentioned above have an option to have an appliance that acts as the local data backup but also can have the failed server be brought up on the appliance allowing the company to run on that server while the new server is installed. This saves several days of downtime.

Another Consideration for Backups

Speed of Data Transmission

There are two separate environments to deal with, the internal network, which has very fast speeds – usually 1GB or higher. This is one reason why backing up the server to a storage device on the network is key – it’s very fast. When transmitting the data to off-site storage, the speed, particularly upload speed, will be key. Most businesses use a cable connection which is asynchronous speed – a higher download than upload speed. The upload speed is usually very slow, even when there is a high download speed. Even a Gigabit cable connection has a maximum upload speed of 30 MB. This makes data transmission to the cloud provider take a long time, but since it is transmitting it from the network storage, it doesn’t interfere with daily operations.

Key Takeaways

1. Backing up your data is critical to your business.
2. Restorable data is key to getting your data back.
3. There are several methods to make sure your data is safe. You need to pick the right one for you. 
4. Your data must be air-gapped and preferably immutable as well
5. Enlist the help of an IT professional to ensure the right method is selected for your business situation.

When it comes to data backup and recovery, enlisting the help of an IT professional can make a significant difference in protecting your business. An expert, like KML Computer Services, can assess your specific needs, identify potential risks, and recommend the most effective backup strategy — whether it’s cloud-based storage, on-site servers, or a hybrid approach. This tailored guidance ensures your data is secure, recoverable, and aligned with industry best practices, giving you peace of mind in the event of unexpected disruptions. Contact us to get started and safeguard your business today.