Why SMBs Must Consider Data Protection in Case of a Disaster
Contents
Many businesses find it difficult to survive a major disruption, whether by natural disaster or data breach. And yet, nearly 68% of businesses report having no disaster recovery plan in writing, even though nearly half of them feel it would take at least three months to recover fully from a catastrophic event.
When your infrastructure, which includes your network and applications, crashes or fails due to cyberattacks or natural disasters, the resulting IT downtime can directly affect ongoing operations and make a serious dent in your bottom line.
In fact, it’s estimated that the average cost for a minute of IT downtime is $5,600 per minute. While it’s true that each business has unique methods of operation so these numbers can’t exactly pinpoint costs for every business, it’s safe to say that the impact is pretty significant.
Why Data Protection is Critical
Downtime is not just about not being able to access data — it’s also about avoiding the interruptions caused by downtime that disrupt productivity and add stress to employees.
These interruptions erode your business continuity, which has a direct impact on revenue. And data loss often goes hand-in-hand with disasters. If losing your data is likely to interfere with the way you conduct business, a backup is crucial.
While software can be reinstalled, files affected in a disaster may be damaged beyond repair, lost, or even stolen.
If stolen, your unprotected data could compromise your business and its customers and violate any number of compliance laws.
To protect your data — and business — from harm, it’s best to prepare in advance by securing ways to keep your data secure.
Backup and Data Protection Best Practices for SMBs
There are several ways SMBs can protect themselves from the risk of data loss from cybersecurity threats and disasters. Here, we examine several key best practices for SMBs interested in developing a strong data protection program.
Write a Disaster Recovery Plan
While many companies skip over this very important task, having a strong disaster recovery plan in place is the first step toward protecting your data.
This is different from backups that are designed to prevent data loss. Instead, a disaster recovery plan is meant to reduce costly downtime through the restoration of mission-critical data.
Explore Backup Options
Backup options for SMBs include both on-location — or local — backups and backups in the Cloud.
- Local Backups
Local backups deliver reduced latency, but they require infrastructure and the associated maintenance and management costs.However, for those organizations that need rapid data flow for business continuity, an on-premises backup may be warranted. - Cloud Backups
The other backup option is Cloud backups, which don’t require the acquisition of infrastructure. Instead, you can often pay as you go, which allows for a high level of cost effectiveness while delivering scalability. - LTO Tapes
Yet a third option for safe backups are LTO tapes, which stands for Linear Tape-Open, an open-format storage technology that remains an attractive choice for long-term backups and periodic archiving because they store large volumes of data reliably and at a low cost.
Consider a Hybrid Solution
Hybrid backup and disaster recovery solutions may give SMBs the agility they need to stay competitive — and protected — without breaking the bank. Local backups can take advantage of local area network (LAN) storage, external hard drives, and/or LTO tapes, depending on the unique needs of the business and its budget.
Backups, whether local or off-premises, should be conducted nightly with a software program that can encrypt and zip files for additional data security and to manage disk space.
At the same time, SMBs can harness the power of off-site storage by using the tiered nature of Cloud storage options to control costs while providing the highest level of security for sensitive or business-critical data.
Document Management Experts
If you’re a business that understands the need to protect your organization from data loss and the need to have access to fast data recovery, Kelley Connect can help.
With over 40 years of expertise providing cutting-edge data protection solutions, our team of experts can develop and implement a plan that will take your business’ unique requirements into consideration.
With access to the latest knowledge and tools, we can provide you with the greatest possible level of protection and keep you on the cutting-edge of cybersecurity.
If your business needs advice on how to protect your data from IT security breaches and other disasters, get in touch with one of Kelley Connect consultants today.