Superheroes need it, police rely on it, and any business that uses computers (are there any that don’t these days?) should use some form of it. It’s called backup and it can mean the difference between a brief computer-related setback and restarting your business from scratch.
Backup, in simple terms, is creating an exact copy of your business data that can be recreated at a later date. So-called “traditional backup” to tape, hard disk, or even cloud services are great for quickly recovering a few files when an employee makes a mistake. If you haven’t felt relieved that you have solid, reliable backups or felt the pain of not having reliable backups, someday you will!
However, there is a huge difference between traditional backup and business continuity or disaster recovery. True, you need to restore a file from time to time and your traditional backups get the job done. But what if you experience a complete hard drive failure, server failure, extended power outage, fire, natural disaster, etc.? At this point we have to have a serious talk about Recovery Time Objective (RTO), or how long you can tolerate being without access to your business information. Your tape or disk-based backups are going to disappoint you in this scenario. To get back up to a fully-operational state using traditional backups can take days if not weeks after a major failure, be it technological or natural. Depending on how critical this data is to your business, this could potentially lead to losing clients, revenue, or in a worst case scenario, being forced to close your doors for good.
Consider this simplified equation: (company revenue + wage bill) x downtime hours. That’s how much money a business loses during downtime, and that adds up faster than you’d think. Businesses need to stop thinking about backup and start thinking in terms of business continuity. When full business continuity is achieved, it fully prepares a business to not only recover from a disaster, but also protects the business from the adverse effects of that disaster – especially the financial losses.
Implementing business continuity practices ensures that the appropriate people have access to critical business functions – customers, suppliers, managers, and systems that a business needs in order to function and generate revenue. This is why business continuity cannot be achieved simply through one solution or technology. There is still an intrinsic human element involved in business continuity. Necessary planning and processes need to be put in place in order for a business to fully recover. For more on business continuity planning as a business practice, see our Business Continuity Planning blog post from December 2012.
Businesses must plan their business continuity strategy on two fronts: planning for how to continue business processes in the event of disaster, and choosing the appropriate business continuity solution to support these processes.
A Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) appliance and service is a business continuity solution that supports the continuation of business processes in the event of a disaster far better than traditional backup. Colden Company offers BDR solutions that are leaps and bounds beyond what traditional backup can offer your business. Consider some of the following differences between traditional backup and BDR.
Traditional Backup: Can take weeks to recover data after a disaster occurs.
BDR: Downtime after a disaster is reduced to hours, minutes, or even seconds – run your business off virtual machine(s) on the appliance quickly.
Traditional Backup: High risk for human error due to heavy manual administration.
BDR: Fully-automated and monitored backup process—very little manual management required.
Traditional Backup: Time-consuming and expensive to make copies of backups or to store backups in multiple locations.
BDR: Each backup is saved in multiple locations: local appliance and bi-coastal data centers.
Traditional Backup: No redundant backups in multiple locations, leaving high risk for original backup systems to be destroyed.
BDR: Eliminates downtime in the event of a disaster by allowing your business to run off a secure cloud over the Internet – completely restored, 100% secure.
Traditional Backup: Limited options for encrypting data, may not pass industry regulations (i.e., HIPAA, SOX).
BDR: AES 256 and SSL key-based encryption ensures data is safe and meets industry regulations (ie. HIPAA, SOX).
Traditional Backup: When recovering data, tape failure rates exceed 50%.
BDR: Minimal risk of corrupted backups or data loss due to multiple integrity checks.
Traditional Backup: Potential for theft or loss of media.
BDR: Off-site backups stored in SSAE 16 data centers.
Business that rely on their electronic data must realize that traditional backup is not all the protection they need. To be fully-prepared for a disaster and achieve a state of readiness for real business continuity at very affordable pricing, talk to Colden Company about BDR. Contact us today at (888) 600-4560 or at info@coldencomany.com, or visit us on Facebook or Twitter and let us help you protect your business for years to come.