Many business owners get a false sense of security just because they have backup software installed. Some even go the extra step and have some form of online backup or even a backup server. But, these solutions don’t go far enough….
They find out too late that typical backup approaches just don’t cut it in today’s complex IT environments.
The cold, hard FACTS about data loss
The causes of data loss and system crashes are well known, but seldom properly addressed. Many people focus on natural disasters or virus problems but these threats make up a small percentage of the root cause of network problems.
In fact, according to statistics from OnTrack Data Recovery
 | 78% Hardware or system malfunction |
| 11% Human error |
| 7% Software corruption or program malfunction |
| 2% Computer viruses |
| 1% Natural disasters |
| 1% Other |
These problems WILL bite EVERYONE eventually . The real question you should be asking is “What are you doing NOW to prepare for a quick a full recovery?”
It is not a mater of “if”, it is simply a matter of “when”! The numbers prove me out again and again. Event with our managed services plan, there is only so much that can be done to prevent these issues from coming up and the worst possible time. I am sure that if you think back over the past few years, there are several times where you needed to rely on your disaster recovery plan and it let you down.
Maybe your backup software was not configured properly and your found out too late, maybe your online backup was not backing up what you thought it was (a very common problem), maybe your backup server was not capable of handling the load, or, worst of all, everything was working properly but your backup recovery took 3 days to complete causing you thousands and thousands of dollars in lost productivity.
Are you doing enough to protect your company’s critical data and guarantee a quick recovery?
Most small businesses plan Russian Roulette each and every day without even knowing it! The truth is that they put their trust in un-trustworthy technology to protect them from network disasters. Most all business have backup software installed, but they rarely monitor the backups – they just assume that they are working properly.
| FACT: The average failure rate of disk and tape drives is 100% – ALL DRIVES WILL EVENTUALLY FAIL. |
| FACT: Only 34% of companies test their tape backups, and of those who do, 77% have found failures. |
| FACT: 60% of companies that lose their data will go out of business within 6 months of the disaster. |
| FACT: 30% of companies report that they still do not have a disaster recovery program in place, and 2 out of 3 feel their data backup and disaster recovery plans have significant vulnerabilities. |
| FACT: Today hard drives store 500 times the data stored on the drives of a decade ago. This increased capacity amplifies the impact of data loss, making mechanical precision more critical. |
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* source: VaultLogix
If you are like most business owners, there are other more important issues demanding attention each and every day. Who has time to worry about a solid backup and disaster recovery plan or watching their backup software to be sure it is working properly? Besides, you haven’t had any major problems so far, right? Chances are you haven’t even had to use your data backup at all.
But how long are you willing to risk your businesses future, your future, your employee’s future on the hope that once the inevitable disaster does occur (and it will) that you will be able to get your business back up and running before your customers find someone else?
Unfortunately, the potential for disaster is very real and is present in EVERY business.
Are you confident that YOUR business recover from one of these common problems?
Will you recover at all? Will your business go the way that 60% of businesses go after a disaster; OUT OF BUSINESS
Smart business owners recognize this problem and have taken steps to protect their company against a disaster. Unfortunately, statistics show that the typical disaster recovery solution is VERY inadequate and fall well short of getting your business back up and running.
Don’t make the same mistake
so many other businesses do…
For years, we have been touting the importance of backups. We pushed our customers constantly to get proper tape backups in place. Hey; this was the best technology available.
With current technology, tapes are simply obsolete, not to mention expensive and inherently unreliable.
Even when everything performed perfectly it took hours upon hours upon hours to get a server back up and running like it should be; time that the business was down hard and unable to service their customers
The ONLY way to completely protect your data and guarantee that you could restore it all after a major disaster is by maintaining an up-to-date copy of your data offsite in a high-security facility AND have a well rehearsed plan to recover correctly.
Unfortunate, far too many businesses still rely on these antiquated and highly manually backup processes and just keep their fingers crossed. Many do it because they don’t know any better (now YOU do), many do it because they think a real solutions is too expensive (it’s NOT), and many,many, many people, even after hearing the price think that it is not worth it!!
Quick question; your business is down and has been for the past 2 days. Your current guy is still monkeying around with backup tapes and servers parts. How much would you pay to have things back to normal in the next 15 minutes??Some business owners HAVE seen the light but have been tricked into sadly inadequate solutions….
Seven hidden reasons why today’s online
backup services will doom your business
Remote backups, also called offsite backups, online backups, or managed backups, is a service that allows you to maintain a secure copy of your data in a different location than your office.
Usually this type of backup is done automatically via the Internet after hours to a high-security facility. There is no question that every business owner should have an offsite copy of their data; however, there ARE big differences among remote backup services and its critical that you choose a good provider or you could end up paying a lot of money only to discover that recovering your data the very reason why you set up remote backups in the first place is not an easy, fast, or simple job.
There are a TON of remote backup services in the world. In fact, I have used data from many of their web sites on this page to demonstrate the need for proper backups.
Unfortunately, typical remote backup companies have three MAJOR flaws that they DON’T TELL YOU and that could DOOM YOUR BUSINESS in the event you need to use their services.
Online backup services don’t backup your entire system!
Because of bandwidth limitations and the amount of data event very small businesses has, they simply can’t move all your data off site. In most cases they pick and choose, backing up only ‘critical’ data. Here is they problem, in the event of a hardware problem or other disaster, your critical data does you NO good because the programs used to access this data are not available. Unless you; secure new hardware, re-install your operating systems, restore your security configurations (which AREN’T being backed up), restore your applications and THEN restore the critical data; your backups are USELESS!!!
Online backup services can’t get you up and running quickly.
Once you ship all your data off to the west coast, how do you get is back quickly? You DON’T!! Most remote backup companies promise to deliver your data on DVD via overnight shipment; well if you could get all your critical system data backed up to a neat and compact DVD, why wouldn’t you just do this yourself!!! Then, once you get your stack of DVD’s; how do you restore them? You start copying files DVD by DVD (while your customers are finding someone else to service there accounts!)
Online backups can take days or even weeks to get you back up and running!
YOU are responsible for getting your system back up and running – the remote backup service just send you the data they have (I hope they got the important stuff) and says ‘good luck.’ Who is going to get your system back up and running so your people can get back to work? This is why network disasters drive many businesses out of existence; by the time they get everything back up and running, their customers have long sense moved on.
Online backups DON’T support complex database systems
Running Microsoft Exchange or SQL server? Chances are VERY high your remote backup solution is NOT backing up these critical systems.
Many online backup systems just backup each night or even just over the weekend
Huge mistake as a recovery only get’s you back to the most recent backup. If you are using a remote solution, DEMAND to know (and verify) how ofter the data is synced off site.
Most online backup systems don’t support any type of archiving
..and if they do they normally charge an arm and a leg for it. What this means to you is that, while you may be able to recover, you can’t retrieve a version of your system; ex: retrieve a file as it was last month. This is super important for archival purposes.
Four critical disaster recovery
functions you MUST DEMAND!
Notice that I did not say “Four critical backup keys…” That’s because a ‘backup’ is useless without a proper disaster recovery plan. The recovery part is usually completely ignored but is the most important part of your plan.
Frequent backups
You want your backup to be as up to date as possible. Most businesses use daily backups. Ideally you want 15 minutes snapshots so you loose the minimal amount of work as possible in the event of an emergency.
Off-site Storage
A key part of ANY backup and disaster recovery plan is the ability to get your data off site. Normally this is done by someone in the office taking a tape home; unfortunately, this scheme comes with it’s own risks including misplacing tapes or melting the tape in a hot car! What is needed is to automatically move your data offsite without relying on human intervention.
Standby Server
What good is a perfect backup if you don’t have anywhere to restore it to?? Not much at all; how about useless. Unless you have a spare server that you can flip a switch and get up and running quickly you are staring days and days (if not weeks) of work in the face trying to get all the pieces and part together to get your business back up and running.
Quick Recovery
The MOST CRITICAL component to a proper disaster recovery plan is the ability to QUICKLY recover from a disaster!! Here is a test, ask yourself; “What steps need to be performed to get our company back up and running and how long will it take?” In most cases, the answer is DAYS if not WEEKS to completely recover – this is unacceptable and put’s your business at risk.
THE perfect solution for your
business has finally arrived
So, you are probably thinking; ‘What makes your service any different?’
Well; our service completely eliminates The 6 Major Remote Backup Flaws AND fully meets The Four Critical Disaster Recovery Keys AT THE SAME TIME.
Our service FULLY MEETS all small business requirements…
- We install a standby server AT YOUR OFFICE; ready to go in case of emergency. Getting your systems up and running takes less than one hour!!
- We backup your ENTIRE server, everything, right down to the printer drivers! We get it all. If it is on your server; it is backed up!
- We TEST our restores, several times each year we do a dry run to be sure everything works as expected.
- We take snapshots of your data EVERY 15 MINUTES; so if you do need to revert back to a prior state you won’t have to go back days; or even weeks!
- We fully support complex database systems; like Exchange. We can even restore just one mailbox. Ever had an employee go off the deep-end and delete their mail? We can get it back for you in a jiffy!
- Should your building burn to the ground we can have a SPARE SERVER WITH YOUR DATA ALREADY ON IT; to your office within 48 hours. With typical backups systems you would be lucky to buy and install a replacement server (or servers) in 48 hours!!
- WE RESTORE YOUR SERVERS at NO ADDITIONAL COST TO YOU. Look at it this way; if you EVER need to restore a server our service pays for itself in the money you WON’T have to pay to your expensive computer consultant guy (you know, the one that is supposed to me managing your backups now!!)
Great; so how much is this going to cost me?
Each company is unique and only a thorough understanding of your environment will allow us to give you a firm price but for a typical office with 3 servers this service cost $299 / month and does NOT COME with strings attached; month-to-month; no long-term contracts.
Ignoring your disaster recovery plans just does not make sense, especially when there is a service that is so easy to install and maintain.
