Backing Up Essential Business Operating Information

Every business owner faces the same questions on how to safeguard against critical data loss.

How can you backup your data from your server (if you have one) along with all your user's workstations (local and remote) securely and automatically? Not to mention having more than 1 copy in case of a mishap. Many business owners make the mistake of leaving the backup procedures to the end users. At the time of a problem 9 times out of 10 there is no reliable, up to date backup available and that is when they realize it's too late.

When the remote employee is left with their own backup responsability it either will not happen and/or the data will dissapear with the employee if he/she ever leaves. Employees come and go but your data shouldn't.

Mail, Databases (SQL, Exchange, etc), Customer Records, Invoices, Presentations, Contracts – it is business-critical data you depend on! Data Catastrophes come in all forms; Human Error, Power Outages, Theft, Employee Dismissal, or Natural Disasters to name a few. It just makes sense to BE PREPARED.

• Data is the lifeblood of your company
• The amount of data created by the average user/company is increasing exponentially
• The loss of revenue for each hour of downtime varies from industry to industry

What would be your real cost of downtime for 1 week,  2 weeks or a month without your data? Don't wait to find out. Backup irreplaceable data with RealTime Online Data Backup Solutions. Our state of the art solution offers automated online backup services designed to be flexible to the deployment needs of our customers.

What to Backup

• Between 40-80% of business critical data resides on the hard drives of laptops & desktops
• These days 50% of computers sold to businesses are laptops
• 6% of all PCs will suffer a ‘data loss incident’ in a given year
• Depending on your situation you might/might not have data servers so ALL of your critical data is on PC's

You can opt to backup down to the "bare metal" for a server or PC as this might sometimes be quicker to restore than re-install and re-configure the system. At the very least you should backup all data files. These are the files that will typically change on a daily basis and cannot be replaced by re-installing software. As mentioned before, typical examples are user profiles including My Documents, Desktop, Favorites and any other applications with data on them such as Microsoft Outlook. Additionaly you may have databases and/or your accounting data, etc. either residing on a desktop(s) or on a server.

Let's Examine Backup Options

Removable Media such as CD/DVD/USB Drive

• While this might work for smaller amounts of data, it is typically NOT automated and relies on human intervention. Might also require a FULL backup each time and it is limited to the amount of data to be backed up.
• This media can be misplaced, lost, or even stolen since it is not very big and easy to take.
• USB drives might NOT necessarily be easily accessible to all of your users (especially remote ones) which would force EACH user to have their OWN USB drive and remember to "plug in and backup"

Tape Drives

• Need that file quick? Besides being slow and cumbersome you require help from your sys admin even if all you want is to restore a single file before that meeting in the afternoon.
• Tapes may be lost, stolen, or even worse, deteriorated which typically you do not know until you need your important data to be restored

Disk to Disk Backup (D2D)

Backup to an on-site machine like a dedicated backup server

• Having the right software for the job you can backup automatically, incrementally and securely. You can also restore files painlessly and quickly without your IT system administrators help. Bare in mind that your data is still "on-site" and is subject to a natural disaster, theft, vandalism, etc..[/important]

• With the right software you can backup automatically, incrementally and securely NO matter where you are as long as you have an internet connection available.

• This is the safest and best way to go. By using RealTime backup software you can not only have all of your users (local & remote) backup to your on-site server, but you can then replicate that data to an off-site server for safe keeping. This allows for the protection against all previously mentioned problems because your data is backed up automatically without user intervention no matter where they are, plus it is being replicated off-site to a secondary location for safe keeping. It also allows for quick data recovery without the system administrators help. Yes, you can restore that important file right before your meeting all by yourself!