As a business you prepare for the possibility of natural disaster and damage to your physical assets with insurance, you prepare for possible inventory loss with security protections, but so many businesses do not prepare for the possibility of data loss.
Regardless of the size of your business, it’s likely that data is an essential aspect of running it. If you don’t yet have a solid plan to keep your data safe, there are three things you should consider:
- Employees are humans and susceptible to making errors.
- All computer systems have the risk of crashing.
- Disasters happen when you’re least prepared.
If you’re still wondering whether or not cloud backup solutions are the right option for your business, these 4 key reasons to utilise cloud backups will help you make the right decision.
Prevent Data Loss as a Result of Constant Syncing
Perhaps the single most important reason for backing-up data is to prevent it from getting lost. Errors and system failures are not uncommon, in fact, 68% have reported losing data due to accidental deletion or hardware/software failure. Cloud-based backup services provide continuous and reliable data protection with guarantee of 24/7 access to data stored in data centres.
By backing up to the cloud, you provide your data with protection from types of data loss including those caused by natural disasters, human error, or ransomware. While your organisation may, unfortunately, have to deal with these issues, not having to worry about the loss of your data is one thing you can check off your list during times of crisis.
Quick Data Recovery to Minimise Risk and Cost of Downtime
Organisations run in real-time and rely on digital data: anything from payroll and customer files to email and other important applications. When disaster strikes, you don’t have the luxury of waiting hour after hour to recover your data.
When your data is stored in the cloud, it’s quick and easy to recover, since you don’t have to worry about driving to a new physical location or finding equipment to restore your data. Your organisation cannot afford the cost of downtime, lost revenue, and other consequences of slow data recovery. Since cloud server backup services immediately move data off-site by backing it up to disk over the cloud, you can restore that data rapidly. Instead of waiting hours, cloud-based recovery enables you to restore your data in minutes, which is suitable for smaller file sets. Since time lost is money lost in any business, the faster you can restore your data, the less money you’ll lose. For a small business bouncing back quickly from a data breach can be imperative, since small companies pay around $133 per minute of downtime during a data breach and it takes on average 18.5 hours for companies to resolve.
With Cloud Storage you’re able to restore your data quickly and easily, getting your business back to normal and functioning faster.
Cloud Backups are Cost-Effective
Many companies who avoid cloud-based services, do it because there is a monthly fee associated with cloud backups. What companies don’t realise is that cloud-based storage is often far less expensive than many traditional methods. Cloud backups are easy for companies to budget for since they have predictable monthly costs and no costs for software, backup hardware, maintenance, or media.
Many businesses will bring up the initial hardware cost as the only savings when switching from traditional data backup systems to cloud-based, but there are hidden savings that many don’t consider:
- Saving money on energy cost: Cloud computing uses less electricity. Better hardware utilisation means more efficient power use for your business. When you run your own data centre, your servers (most likely) won’t be fully utilised. Idle servers waste energy, which means that regardless of demand, a cloud service provider can charge you less for energy used than you’re spending in your own data centre.
- You’ll save money by streamlining your workforce: Whenever we analyse an organisation’s computing costs, the biggest single line item is often staffing. By introducing a cloud backup solution, we can automate the entire process removing the need for your staff to dedicate time each day to manage your backups.
- You’ll save on hardware redundancy: When you run your own localised data centres and servers, you need to buy more hardware than you need in case of failure. Many companies have spare hardware lying idle, “just in case,” which is an expensive way to maximise uptime. With cloud computing services that will prepare for reduces for you. Typical clouds have several locations for their data centres, and they mirror your data and applications across at least two of them. That’s a less expensive way of doing it, and another way to enjoy the cloud’s economies of scale.
Know the Difference – Cloud Storage vs Cloud Backups
Shifting working trends towards remote working and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic have significantly increased the uptake of cloud technologies. According to research by Snow Software, 82% of IT leaders upped their cloud usage to help navigate the first few months of the pandemic.
When it comes to working from home, real-time syncing and easy remote access is essential. it’s not hard to see why many companies are relying on cloud storage – which by its very nature is designed to be accessed from any device with an internet connection, anywhere in the world. Organisations that were already operating a cloud document storage solution have found it much easier to pivot to a working from home model when lockdown suddenly hit, as vital files and information remained easily accessible to employees.
However, utilising cloud document storage doesn’t mean you have a reliable backup solution. Whether you’re using One Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox etc, to store your data, if your retention settings aren’t set up correctly, when you delete a file, it could be permanently gone or purged in a period of time.
Whereas a cloud backup solution takes a copy of the data and isn’t the data itself. By having both in place, you can restore a file using the retention settings in your cloud document storage or if you lose the file completely, you’ll be able to access it via your cloud backup solution.
It’s also worth noting that cloud backup solutions have retention limits too, but by working with Cloud Computing specialists they can ensure it is set up correctly.
Download Our eBook
The cost of cyber-attacks extends beyond financial losses. Past events shown us that prevention through education trumps the aftermath of breaches.
Conclusion
Cloud services are taking the business world by storm and cloud adoption statistics tell the same story— according to Cloud Adoption Statistics for 2021, 94% of enterprises already use a cloud service.
Cloud computing offers enhanced security and stability, helps cut costs, and gives companies greater flexibility. Migrating your business storage and backups from traditional methods to the cloud can feel like an overwhelming task for any size company. With the right partner, the process can be a breeze.
As a cloud service provider for small-to-medium businesses in Cairns and Townsville, Future IT Services understands how modern infrastructure like cloud computing services can help to grow your business.