According to the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, “93% of companies that lost their data center for 10 days or more due to a disaster filed for bankruptcy within one year of the disaster. Half of the businesses found themselves without data management for this same time period filed for bankruptcy immediately.” Big data is a critical topic and should be a concern all business managers have. As companies create, store, and use digital files, there needs to be a system to ensure they do not get lost.

Going away are the days of endless rows of file cabinets. Replacing them is an endless row of servers. Ensuring your company has a proper backup could save the company from bankruptcy in the chance a major disaster happens. More importantly, it saves time in disaster recovery.

Therefore, where should you backup? Of course, everyone is talking about the cloud but does your office really need to introduce the cloud. Every business is unique. Their data needs are even more unique.

The first thing to look at is if you want a local or remote backup. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Local backups everything is backed up locally within the walls of the business. This is done either on tapes, CDs, or additional hard drives.

Remote backups are cloud backups where a company such as Microsoft or Google provides your company with a backup solution. The files are stored on their server and accessible anywhere in the world. After deciding whether to go with a local or remote backup next, a company should look at how often they should back up files.

Companies that are regularly creating and changing files should do a backup once a day, if not a couple of times. Companies that are less regularly creating these files should choose to backup once a couple of times a week. Look at what days a company could be creating and storing more files and chooses to back up on that day.

The last thing to look at with backups is to make sure to test the backup. Only about 34% of big companies test their tape drives. Out of those who do, failures reach up to 77%. If your company has any questions about backup needs, please contact Certified Network Systems immediately to ensure your data stays safe.