Benchmark Information Technology

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Backing Up Your Data:
Has Your Business Done Enough?

4 Tips to Get Your Business on the Right Track

Data is at the core of many businesses. But despite its importance, why is it that so many small businesses do not have solid backup and recovery plan in place? When all of your financial data and customer lists can be lost due to data corruption, user error, viruses, hard drive crashes, or a natural disaster, a backup plan should be at the very top of any company’s priority list. A solid and well tested backup solution is paramount and should include data redundancy and both local and offsite backup strategies.

Two common mistakes companies make is not starting with a solid backup plan and failing to consistently test current backups to ensure that key data is being backed up correctly and is, in fact, truly recoverable. Our firm has seen multiple cases where an audit of a company’s network revealed that their existing backup had been failing for weeks or even months. In all of these cases, the company would have lost crucial data if the server had failed or a disaster had occurred.

Each of these businesses had previously considered themselves “covered” because they were “backing up.” The benefit of an audit is often the avoidance of stories we hear about far too often, where a firm’s system goes down one day only to discover at that point of failure that their backup was not working at all. Try to imagine keeping your business afloat when you cannot access critical data and your employees are unable to work. It can be a nightmare, which is why 43% of companies that have a major data loss never re-open.

Creating a backup and recovery plan is insurance against disaster and system failure. It may never be needed, but when systems fail, it is there to save your business.

Your backup and recovery should include the following four components -

  1. A qualified consultant with solid experience in developing backup and recovery solutions is necessary to ensure that a plan is developed and customized for your business. The consultant should act as the company CIO and offer one-on-one time with the business owner or IT manger.
  2. A network backup analysis will help establish what critical data needs to be protected and determine the safest way to protect your data both locally and offsite.
  3. Regular testing of network and server data backup systems can validate that, in the event of a real disaster, the data is recoverable.
  4. Secured remote backup of critical data will make certain that your company’s information is protected even should the primary business location be lost to fire or other disaster.

Find out how Benchmark Information Technology can help your business. Call us toll-free at 866-326-1427, or email us at . One of our highly qualified engineers will be available to review your current network backup.

Benchmark Information Technology is a Microsoft Certified Partner and a Microsoft Certified Small Business Specialist serving businesses with 5-200 employees. Our firm specializes in backup planning, computer support, server support, server installations and upgrades, network maintenance and repair, and monitoring.