What Should Be Included in Your Backup and Disaster Recovery Preparations

Did you know that World Backup Day is in just a few short weeks? While it is an imperative occasion for businesses to recognize, data backup should really be something you think about all the time; your backup is an integral part of the backup and disaster recovery portion of your overall business continuity.

Listed below are some of the things that should be included in your backup and disaster recovery (BDR) preparations.

What Should Be Involved in Your Business’ BDR?

We always recommend that your backup strategy follow what is commonly known as the 3-2-1 Backup rule. This rule can be summed up as follows:

• You maintain at least three copies of your data
• This data should be stored in at least two different storage media
• One of these copies should be maintained offsite, ideally, in the cloud

These are the basics. That being said, for some additional value, we can go a bit deeper into the weeds and describe what a good backup will need.

Optimal Elements of a BDR that’s Designed for Success Include:

Image-Based Backups

Which sounds quicker to you: recreating each file that was lost individually, or dropping in a complete copy of your data storage all at once? This is the “magic,” of sorts, that image-based backups provide. Time is of the essence in a data loss situation, so the faster data can be restored, the better.

Redundant Elements

While redundancy isn’t often a good thing, backups are a shining exception. The more redundant your data is, the better, because you’ll know that you have a spare if something happens to one copy. However, your redundancy doesn’t have to stop there (and really shouldn’t). You need to make sure that your backups have guaranteed power, for instance, making redundant power supplies a necessity. The same goes for Internet connectivity—running multiple connections helps ensure you’ll retain access.

Protections and Defenses

Finally, you need to be sure that your backups aren't going to suffer from various security issues. It wouldn’t be good if your backups were infected by ransomware, for instance, or if someone managed to steal the data as you were backing it up. Thus, you should have all of the protections you would have at your place of business also implemented where your backups are, and always make sure your transmitted data is appropriately encrypted.

Macro Systems is here to help you make the most of your backup and disaster recovery planning. Learn more by reaching out at 703-359-9211.