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Data Loss – the nightmare that’s waiting to happen
How to protect your most valuable asset – 11 essential tips
FACT: 90% of businesses that lose their data in a disaster go out of business within two years, and almost 50% never reopen their doors.
This isn’t idle scaremongering. It’s a fact. More than half of businesses fail to maintain an adequate data back-up system. Irretrievable data loss can, quite literally, spell the death of your business. Imagine for a moment that, in the blink of an eye, your customer records, financial systems, VAT and tax returns, business documents and email system have all disappeared - forever. It happens. What effect would this have on your livelihood? The fact is in the printing and design trade critical information is no longer retained on paper. For convenience it is stored exclusively as digital data. And here lurks the danger...
It won’t happen to me!
Power loss, fire, flood, theft, sabotage, virus infection, hard drive failure or system crash. Which will it be? Or, just as commonly, plain human fallibility, such as the over-zealous research scientist who drilled a hole into his hard drive and poured oil into it because it was squeaking!
Everyone thinks data loss is someone else’s problem. But as predictably as death and taxes sooner or later it’s going to happen to you. On what scale it’s impossible to predict, and hopefully when it does occur it won’t be too damaging. The crucial trick, of course, is to anticipate the inevitable. Here’s how:
11 essential tips to protect your most valuable asset
- ALWAYS backup ALL key data to disk, tape or automated service – daily, weekly and monthly.
- If using tapes, don’t continue to backup to the same tape again and again without checking it. Overwriting an existing backup with corrupted information may destroy your one chance of recovering your information.
- Check your backups. A backup strategy is only effective if it happens. (Up to 50% of tape backups fail!) Be certain. Don’t just presume. Confirm that your backup has worked successfully by running a trial ‘restore’ procedure.
- Get offsite backup. To be properly protected it does no good to have your backup sitting in the drive of a machine that is then damaged or stolen.
- A keychain is not a security device!
- Continually refine your backup selection to remain in step with changes in your business. Keep your data backup current.
- Don’t create points of risk. If you have a member of staff managing your backups and he or she is taking them home, what happens if that person is off sick, quits or disappears? What happens if the backups are lost or stolen? Your backed up data needs to be accessible to more than one employee or you have otherwise unwittingly created a new point of risk.
- Think about recovery. What if your server dies? What if you lost your entire network? Are there databases that are indispensable to your day to day operations?
- How quickly do you need to be able to recover data to keep your business running smoothly? Does everything need to be recoverable in 4 hours when in reality it will take 24 to 48 hours to buy new computer equipment to recover your systems? Anticipate the worst.
- Don’t panic! If you’ve done your homework and set up systems correctly, checking regularly to make sure things are proceeding as expected, you WILL be able to recover your data.
- And finally, be honest with yourself. If you can’t manage the backups on your own, don’t leave it to chance. Work with a partner company that will take the responsibility for the security of your data and systems. It’s a small price to pay for peace of mind.
For a free consultation to create a proposal for securing your business, contact DataFort today:
Phone: 01483 872052
