The Golden Rules of Data Backup Every Business Owner Needs to Swear an Oath To

If you are a frequent reader of this blog, you know that we rev the throttle on data backup a lot. This is because it can quite literally save your business and for something that valuable, it doesn’t come with a lot of cost. Unfortunately, a lot of businesses don’t always find the expense worth it. In the minds of many decision-makers, what are the chances that your business is hit with a situation that would necessitate a full system restore? 

The answer is: A lot.

It doesn’t have to be a fire or flood; it quite literally could be something as benign as an employee falling for a phishing attack or even deleting a file folder that contains critical information. These things happen and having a comprehensive data backup and recovery strategy in place can make all the difference. 

The 3-2-1 Rule

The industry standard for data backup is what we refer to as the 3-2-1 rule. It covers all the bases to provide an organization with an answer for any of its data continuity issues. The 3-2-1 rule states that an organization should:

• Keep at least three copies of their data
• With two of those backups copied on separate storage media
• And one of those backups stored offsite—we recommend the cloud

In the execution of this strategy, your organization ensures that data can be recovered in almost any situation your business finds itself in. This strategy doesn’t make your organization choose one main backup, it provides options that can be useful in different situations. Let’s take a brief look at how the 3-2-1 rule works in practice. 

Three Copies

Keeping three copies of your data may seem like overkill at first until you understand that one of the copies is your primary production data and then two copies of that. Having three copies ensures that if something happens at your business, you will have at least one copy to use to keep your business running

Two on Separate Media

The reason you would need at least one copy on two separate storage media is because if you had two copies of your data on the same server, and something terrible happens and that server is compromised, your business would be in jeopardy. At BNMC, our BDR service backs up one copy onsite and another in the cloud to ensure that any contingency is covered. 

One Copy Offsite

Today, the best place to backup your data is an offsite data center. This way, anything that happens to your physical location doesn’t have an effect on your data that is backed up and up-to-date in the cloud. 

At BNMC, we pride ourselves on helping Boston Metro and across the North East organizations get the technology they require while protecting their business from loss. Give us a call today for more information if your business could benefit from a comprehensive solution for your data backup needs.