Why is cloud backup important?
In today’s digital world, investing in cloud backup solutions has become a necessity for businesses of all sizes. People rely heavily on technology for business, communication, transactions, and even entertainment. So, what will happen if their devices fail, or data is lost? By storing data off-site in the cloud, organizations can ensure that their critical information is always available, even in the event of a disaster. However, for successful cloud backup, businesses must be careful not to make any mistakes.
Cloud backup can help organizations protect their vital data and ensure that their business continues to run smoothly in a digital world. Having a cloud backup solution gives a peace of mind that comes with knowing that the enterprise data is safe and readily available when needed the most. With the amount of information businesses store today, cloud backup should be a key part of an organization’s disaster recovery (DR) plan.
5 cloud backup mistakes you must avoid
By backing up your data to the cloud, you can access it from anywhere in the world at any time. However, if you’re not careful, you can easily make costly mistakes when backing up your data. Here are five of the most common cloud backup mistakes that executives should avoid at all costs.
- Backing up too frequently
No one ever wants to face the prospect of losing important data, whether it’s personal photos or critical business information.
There are systems that can backup data every 15 minutes. While this may seem like overkill, it’s not as effective as it sounds. One of the biggest problems is that it uses up a lot of space, meaning you would need multiple cloud providers to store everything. Additionally, system performance is lowered during backups and the process itself takes a lot of time.
For these reasons, it’s generally best to backup data daily when your station is inactive. However, you should also keep a weekly or monthly backup in case of emergencies. By following these steps, you can ensure that your important data is always safe and sound.
- Backing up only a fraction of the data
Do you need to back up all the data on your systems or only certain important data? To ensure the safety and security of your organization, you must backup the entire data on your system to the cloud.
However, most of the time business managers only back up a fraction of their critical data and then they realize they’re missing valuable information. The most overlooked type of data is email.
Certain email services only save emails on your and your employees’ workstations. These emails aren’t being archived for later use. In case you have any crucial information on those emails, it gets lost if someone decides to clean up their inbox. Here, the emails must be stored on a server and then backed up to the cloud.
- Leaving apps open during the backup process
There’s always a risk of losing important files due to hardware failure, user error, or malicious software. cloud backup services provide an easy way to protect your data by storing it remotely.
However, not all services are created equal. Some backup services only backup data when files are closed. Any “in progress” work could be lost if your computer crashes or is infected with malware as your system would have skipped a crucial backup.
To avoid this potentially devastating scenario, before initiating the backup, do not forget to close any apps that will interfere with the backup process.
- Not having a proper folder structure
If your data is cluttered, it might not have any impact on your cloud backup process. But if something happens and you need to restore your data, it will be a nightmare. That’s because you won’t be able to find the files you need quickly.
To avoid this, you should sort your information into easily manageable clusters. The less complex the clusters are, the easier it will be for everyone who has access to the backups to find what they need.
You may also want to set access privileges on folders so that no unwanted information leaks out.
- File restoration mistakes
Cloud computing has made it easy for everyone to learn how to back up their important information. However, this technology cannot prevent human error. Unfortunately, there have been many cases where people have lost data because they made a mistake while restoring files.
To avoid this problem, you can restore data to a separate location and then copy it back to the original place. This way, you won’t accidentally overwrite any important documents.
You can also interrupt your online backup process while restoring files so that the software does not back up the same information twice.
Wrapping up:
A backup is essential for recovering data to operate, for analysis, and even for compliance. Mistakes in the backup process can affect your business, especially when discovered too late. That’s why it is important to know what not to do when backing up data in the cloud. Common mistakes include forgetting to back up all data, not having a backup plan, not closing apps that might interfere with the operation, and restoration errors.
Cloud backup solutions like Acronis make it easy and affordable to ensure your data is always safe. Acronis offers more than simple backup – it combines cloud backup with cyber protection features and delivers all-around protection to your systems. With Acronis, you get:
- Scheduled backup reports along with continuous data protection
- Protection for 20+ workload types from a single console
- Data protection mapping and compliance reporting for better visibility
- Extension of backup capabilities to varied application clusters like SAP HANA, Oracle DB, etc.
A well-thought-out cloud backup and recovery plan is critical for any business manager – make sure you have one in place or review your current strategy today!
