The Cloud is still a hot topic and increasingly relevant to businesses across all sectors; over 50% of businesses in the UK are now cloud enabled. As more and more people are relying on the Cloud it is more important than ever that data is secure and recoverable.
Many people worry about where their data is, as it is not in their hands and therefore ‘at risk’. Whilst precautions must always be taken to ensure all data is secure and backed up, hosting data in the Cloud means you are much less susceptible to natural disasters and human error.
What if the inevitable happened?
I recently had a discussion with a start-up business who had not thought about Cloud based back up and business continuity. They were a recruitment agency who had been working hard for 6 months meeting prospective clients and candidates with all data being recorded and saved on a laptop. One evening the laptop was stolen from inside the front door of the owners’ house. This meant that 3 months’ of work was lost forever. Obviously devastating for the owners but it also taught them a valuable lesson and now they will never be without a cloud based backup solution. Imagine if this had happened 3 years down the line…!
Computer viruses, hackers and malware are well publicised and the risks well known, whilst natural disasters and human error are rarely spoken about.Of course you should take every precaution against malicious attacks, however sometimes they are difficult to stop. Similarly fire, theft and floods are difficult to control, however human error can be reduced by education and thorough processes and many organsiaitons would benefit from focusing more on these.
A recent study by CompTIA found that 94% of respondents regularly log into public Wi-Fi, without thinking about security risks. And, 69% access work-related data over public Wi-Fi.
What would happen if a database containing all of your customers’ details was deleted and couldn’t be restored for 24 hours. What if it was 48 hours—how would that impact the business and the trust your customers have in you?
The Solution
Keeping your data safe even when physical hardware has been destroyed or lost is certainly not impossible as long as you are using cloud based back-up solutions. At Complete I.T. we partner with a range of backup and business continuity solution providers including Datto an award winning fully hybrid business continuity solution.
Back-up and disaster recovery are hot topics, educate your employees and minimise the risk!