You’re ready to purchase a BDR (Backup and Disaster Recovery). You’ve done all of the research, found a company you’re confident in and are excited to finally have peace of mind. Now, you start thinking about exactly what you need to back up. Is all of your data necessary or should you salvage a little server room? Most businesses want to back up everything – you never know when you’ll need it, but sometimes that is cost prohibitive. In this blog post we are going to cover the top types of backups and what data you need to be backing up in order to protect your business and your clients.
The types of backups
There are three different kinds of backup in today’s tech world: straight to cloud services, software-based products, and a hybrid approach that combines on-site hardware and software with the cloud. The amount of data you can back up, how you can segment that data, how often it’s backed up, how it’s backed up (all the data every time creating enormous backups, versus incremental backups that key-in on changes) and how easy it is to access will be affected based on the solution you chose. It’s not always necessary to back up everything daily, but there are some things you will want to consider when choosing a data backup and recovery option for your business.
The data points that should be backed up
First is credit card transactions or receipts. Your accounting software should keep an eye on this and automatically back up this data. This also includes anything that is financially related. Things like invoicing, receivables, and payroll. All financials are incredibly important to the health of your business, even one lost invoice could really hurt your business and send everyone in a frenzy.
Second, protect all intellectual property. Make sure that you back up everything that brings you a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Anything with hackable data or items that could be compromised need to be backed up daily. Imagine what would happen if you were to lose that data? Or if a hacker were to gain access and use it to their advantage? Losing intellectual property is damaging to a business, and needs to be taken seriously.
Next, you will want to back up any client files and personal data. Not only is it invaluable to keep this information safe, but it would certainly affect your client confidence if anything was lost or stolen. Your clients have put their trust in you to keep this information secure, and you need to have the infrastructure in place to meet that expectation. In addition to client files, make sure you’re backing up your client and prospect lists (anything that you’re storing in your CRM, really). Losing this information is one of the major reasons companies go out of business within six months of experiencing data loss.
Finally, you must back up all project management software. Keeping a “paper trail” is crucial to functioning on a day to day basis. Anything that your business uses to keep track of daily activities and work being done needs back up to make sure that you can maintain progress in the event of a data loss.
When it comes to BDR, you ideally want to back up every piece of data that you have. Sometimes, though, this is impossible based on the cost involved in maintaining that hefty data chain.
What Next?
If you’re unsure of where to start when it comes to Backup and Recovery options for your business, contact us here at Magnitech and we will be happy to help you navigate through!
