According to a survey by Information Technology Intelligence Consulting, downtime can cost businesses over $5 million dollars. Sometimes, data loss is caused by events beyond our control, such as natural disasters or power failures. Other times, malicious human behavior is to blame, including cyberattacks or security breaches led by savvy cybercriminals. Regardless, without the proper backup and disaster recovery plan in place, these events lead to drops in productivity, financial damage, customer loss or even business closures.
In this blog post, we’ll explain how you can avoid potential business disasters and the backup and recovery solutions available to you – and how to get started.
What is Data Backup and Disaster Recovery?
First, it’s important to break down the difference between a backup and a disaster recovery process. Data backup includes replicating data or files and saving them in a separate location. In doing so, they are accessible in the event of an accidental deletion by human error or technical issue, such as a software upgrade gone wrong.
Disaster recovery, on the other hand, refers to the plans and policies that organizations put in place to gain access to disrupted or lost data, ensuring business continuity. One of the more common disaster recovery methods is to have redundant servers ready should an event occur. These servers act as a duplicate of your system and allow you to operate as you normally would while you recover your business data.
Backup and disaster recovery should work in tandem with each other. Data backups may save your data, but they won’t help your organization restore your IT infrastructure in the event of a disaster. For example, if a hurricane is projected to impact your area, a disaster recovery plan will help ensure your operations keep running and your employees have the ability to continue working remotely without interruption.
Why You Should Implement Backup and Disaster Recovery
You know the “what” behind backing up your data and having a disaster recovery plan – but why exactly do you need it?
One big reason is the ever-prevalent risk of cyberattacks. In 2022, 76% of organizations were targeted by a ransomware attack. Ransomware attacks not only lead to data damage or loss, but they can cause a big hit to your brand’s reputation, especially if sensitive customer information is stolen or leaked. Other prominent cyberattacks include phishing, man-in-the-middle attacks, denial-of-service attacks or cryptojacking – all of which have their own significant repercussions.
Moreover, some industries legally require that organizations have backup and disaster recovery services, including the healthcare sector. Specifically, patient medical data backup is required under the HIPAA Security Rule. This same data is also required to be secure, confidential and still accessible if met with any data loss or protection breaches.
As the world only becomes more digital, modern-day organizations need to keep up with advancements in data protection in order to successfully avoid threats, losses or breaches. That’s where Universal Data comes in.
How Can We Help You with Your Backup and Disaster Recovery?
Fortunately, you don’t have to try and handle backing up and recovering data on your own. Universal Data offers managed backup and disaster recovery solutions that greatly reduces your risk of costly downtime. We continuously monitor and manage any threats, calculating the impact of a potential data loss and providing access to your backed-up data exactly when you need it.
If you’re ready for better data security and peace of mind, get in touch with our data protection experts today.