Parag Khurana, Regional Sales Director, Outside Sales, Barracuda Networks (India) Private Limited
March 31, World Backup Day, is an annual reminder that the data needs to be protected before it is lost due to a security accident. Today where everything is digital and revolves around data, it’s important to ensure that the sensitive documents are protected from things like malware, hardware failures, and human error, or any other suspicious software. Events like World Backup Day are good times to think about what an effective data backup strategy needs to do.
What are backups and why are they important?
A backup means a separate copy of the important digital files, folders and documents at more than one place. Millions of laptops and other devices are lost every year due to malice or accidents. This might lead to data loss, if the important information is not copied through a backup. Creating data backup ensures all major files are protected and their copies are safely kept elsewhere to be restored. The main objective of backup is to have a recovery plan for the future, when the primary data becomes inaccessible.
Failure to backup
Data loss is usually sudden and unexpected. The risk of losing personal data is as high as its value. All the important files and folders can vanish quickly, easily, and without any fanfare or reason to notice that it’s missing or inaccessible. If data is not secured well, it can turn into a costly affair, as there would be very less possibility of restoring the things that were there in the device which is no more accessible. Despite the importance of their data, many companies do not have a comprehensive backup strategy in place. This can be attributed to a handful of very human factors:
- The assumption that a catastrophic event “will never happen to me”
- Inattention to recovery time objectives and recovery point objectives
- Confidence in a single, on-site copy of critical data as a complete backup method
- Failure to conduct ‘fire drills’ and other tests of the backup system
- Incomplete backup strategies that fail to protect operating systems, SaaS data, and other mission-critical data
- Prioritizing security and other technology or IT initiatives over data backup
The occurrence of such backup failures can be painful, and a combination of them can be fatal to a business. If either of these factors are present in a business, it should be addressed immediately.
How World Backup Day can help
Even those companies who have created a comprehensive backup and data protection strategy are vulnerable if they haven’t deployed and fully tested their plans. While every day should be considered a backup day, the annual World Backup Day can help kick start some conversations around this topic and urge businesses to review their backup strategy, for example, does on-premise backup provide everything businesses need: reliability and value for money? Is Microsoft 365 data protected in the cloud? Is resiliency considered and air-gapped copies of the data backed up? Is a solution in place that meets GDPR requirements? How often are DR and recovery workflows run through? It’s a lot to consider, but that’s what’s imperative if companies want to ensure they don’t have to pay for a cyberattack or complete data loss with a complete business shut down.
How Barracuda can help
While World Backup Day considers data backup to be “a second copy of all the important files” that can be stored “somewhere safe,” Barracuda addresses it from the perspective of data protection. In order to meet growing demand for data protection services in India and better serve local customers, Barracuda has recently added its new regional Cloud-to-Cloud Backup data centre in India and enables customers with fast and resilient backup experience for Microsoft 365 data protection.
