In today’s digital world, data is the lifeblood of business. From customer contact information and internal business knowledge stored locally and on cloud infrastructure, to sales and financial records, enterprises rely on data. Yet all this information can be lost in a split second.
Cyberattacks, third-party breaches, sudden power outages and human errors are just a few examples of situations that can result in the loss of critical business data. In times of crisis, backup is key. Having an effective backup management system in place makes a significant difference in the speed and success of data recovery and job failure management, improving compliance.
Below I’m outlining some of the steps you can take to secure your data as well as recover from its potential loss.
What you should start with is identifying your most vital business data. This way, you can define which information is crucial for the continuity of your business in case of any unprecedented events, hence what should be properly stored, secured, and regularly backed up.
Proceed to select the backup tools best tailored to your needs. This includes not only choosing the right technologies but also determining the location of data storage and frequency of backups. Many companies still make the mistake of backing up their data in the same location as the originals. Don’t go down the same road and keep your data safe in another, or several, locations.
With massive amounts of data, companies, especially those with international teams scattered around the world, choose to store it and back up through multiple different tools and technologies. However, this makes it much more difficult to have full visibility of the entire backup process.
This is where solutions like JobR that centralise everything on a single platform come to the rescue, giving you actionable insights into your backups and simplifying backup administration. Choosing such an option applies consistency across backup locations and domains, improves compliance, and streamlines backup troubleshooting and diagnostics because you can easily identify patterns.
Backup management doesn’t end with deploying the system. To ensure that your backup infrastructure is working as intended and that you will be able to retrieve and restore data should the need arise, you have to test it. As technology can let you down at any moment, make sure to regularly carry out tests and familiarise your nominated team with a backup policy.
Like all business processes, this one requires constant monitoring too. Diagnosing potential issues early on enables them to be addressed promptly and allows you to consider other backup options, including a change of supplier, budget, or internal procedures.
Backup administration engineers need to view incidents through a business lens. When data is viewed as solely something of concern for the IT department, the impact on the wider business in areas like business continuity, brand perception and customer experience is underestimated. When any data breach occurs, this should be viewed in a business context to assess the real impact and secure future buy-in from senior leaders on the importance of data issues.
Despite efforts to minimise the risk of data loss, such situations do happen. Whether due to external factors or human error, these events cannot always be predicted. But fortunately, you can prepare before they unfold.
To retrieve data as quickly as possible and get your business back on track, you need to have a data loss plan in place. The steps your employees need to follow in such a situation should be written and easily accessible. But the policy itself will only prove useful if you train your team and provide them with guidance beforehand. Storing resolution knowledge centrally prevents recurrent issues.
If this involves customer or employee personal data, a comms plan and legal guidance will also need to be in-placed so you are advised accurately by the experts.
While data loss incidents cannot be eliminated, you have many tools at your disposal to mitigate their potential effects. With data and knowledge among the most essential corporate assets, every business leader should move backup management up their priority list to stay afloat in times of crisis.
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