Data loss is a serious concern for any business. In the age of digital transformation, every action and interaction has value, informing the way forward and helping you establish trust with existing and prospective customers.
If your company were to experience data loss, it could lead to costly downtime, impacting your business continuity as well as your brand reputation.
More than half of all SMBs have experienced data loss resulting in downtime in the past year, but it’s not all caused by malicious intent. The truth is, most data loss occurs because of human error—so even if you feel like you’re protected against outside threats, what’s happening within your firewalls might be an even bigger concern.
With so much riding on data security and availability, backing it up is essential. Since there are many ways to approach backing up company data, you’ll want to ensure you choose the method and tools that best suit your needs and budget.
Backup Solutions and Services: What to Consider
Backing up company data involves making a copy of your systems, files, and all dependent applications. Doing so manually—that is, backing up to an external drive without an automated backup service—is an arduous task, and it’s not the most reliable approach, either.
For example, should systems fail in between scheduled backups, you risk losing sales, communications, and other vital company information. Recovery and rebuilding the lost data will consume company resources, and there are some things you might never get back. Plus, if sensitive customer data, like credit card information, is compromised, you could be liable for steep fines (not to mention the loss of trust you might not recover from.)
Backup Strategies for SMBs
Even if you do still use manual backups, ideally, you should have some redundancy built-in. Backup best practices suggest applying the 3-2-1 strategy, in which there are three separate copies of your systems on two different media, with one stored off-site. The off-site version is usually a cloud solution, an ideal failsafe if you lose your physical devices or premises.
Many SMBs choose cloud backups as they provide incredible value and reliability. Let’s look at the benefits:
- Minimize Disruption. Cloud backups run continuously in the background, so you can restore your systems to an exact point in time to minimize disruption and data loss. If you relied on manual backups exported to a hard drive, you wouldn’t have the same flexibility.
- Cost Reduction. Cloud backups are cost-effective and scalable to your needs. You pay a monthly subscription based on how much data you’re backing up and your storage needs. If you require more (or less), the system scales with you, as does the cost. On the other hand, external drives, on-premise servers, and the IT staff you’ll need to run it all are a significant expense.
- Disaster Planning. Flooding, fire, earthquakes, severe storms, power surges, outages, or other natural disasters could all cause you to lose your servers, computers, or premises. When you’re backed up to the cloud, you can get back to business faster as your data is accessible from anywhere. Simply download to a new device and carry on.
Cloud Backup Services Benefits
Partnering with a cloud backup provider like Rewind has many benefits. When you consider that most small businesses run lean and don’t have an in-house IT team, a cloud backup service provides the ultimate peace of mind.
Should data loss occur, whether because of mistakenly deleted files, natural disaster, or malicious intent, you have a complete copy of your company’s systems, files, and dependent data. Whether you need to restore a single image, a handful of transactions, or an entire product line, you can do so within minutes of discovering the mistake—and get back to running your business.
Rewind is the leading provider of BaaS apps. Since 2015, Rewind has helped over 80,000 businesses back up their data on Shopify, QuickBooks Online, BigCommerce, GitHub, Trello, and more.
