Regular Backup Testing: Save Time, Money and Energy

As a business owner, you know that your data is critical for the business’s continued success, and you may already have a backup plan in place. However, It is also essential to ensure your backups are tested regularly to know they are functioning properly.

The last thing you want in the event of data loss is to find out your backups have failed, and you are unable to retrieve your vital information. Regular backup testing will help you save time, money, and energy down the line. This blog is to inform you on backup best practices.

 

Components of effective backups

There are usually three main backup components that businesses should include in their backup plan. These measures will guarantee your backups are running effectively and without failure.

Backup Scheduling

Having a consistent backup schedule is key in protecting against data loss.  It is important to determine what protective measures are sufficient for your business. If your business cannot function successfully without its stored data, running backups once a week may not be enough. You could be at risk of losing an entire week’s worth of data, which could be detrimental to your business. Hence why it is critical to create a backup schedule that makes sense for your unique business.

Backup Monitoring

It is crucial to the security of your data to regularly monitor your backups as well. Monitoring helps you spot any failures that could occur and resolve them as soon as possible, preventing irrecoverable data if found too late. Active monitoring can also help you target the cause of the failure and allow you to fix any issues as soon as possible.

Backup Testing

Imagine consistently backing up your data and monitoring it is stored correctly, but discovering you are unable to retrieve any of it when needed. It is important to test the ability to retrieve and access the data stored to make sure it is available when you need it most. Otherwise, it would be a significant waste of time and effort, along with money and storage space.

 

Benefits of regular backup testing

Now that you know why regular backup testing is an essential part of your disaster recovery strategy, we should also mention the other benefits that are included with this process.

• Disaster recovery readiness:

The most important benefit to regular backup testing is readiness. Being prepared in the event of disaster will ensure your business is able to quickly recover from any incident it faces. Quick recovery in getting your company back up will spare you from significant financial loss.

• Compliance adherence:

In order to be in line with compliance regulations, regular testing is required. According to these regulations, if the proper protocols are followed most disaster recovery plans have zero value and will not work when needed.

• Deduplication avoidance:

Duplication can significantly limit the available space you have for data storage. When there are duplicates taking up excess space, you can expect to see longer processing times to go through the data itself. The process of deduplication is to ensure you only have the necessary data critical to your requirement.

• Optimized data:

Having your critical data stored in an organized fashion will help you save time and help you recover your information quicker and ensure you’re accessing the right information. Optimized data helps you work more efficiently when in the restoration process.

• Understanding your infrastructure:

Backup testing allows companies to access a better understanding of their data storage infrastructure. Having a clear and organized view of where the data is stored will help in understanding the backup process as a whole.

• Commitment to stakeholders:

Having a solid backup strategy indicates that you are committed to the security of your customer data. Testing your backups regularly is a better way to show your customers and other stakeholders that you are doing everything in your power to ensure business continuity.

 

Reduce recovery failures with testing!

We regularly run disaster drills in our daily lives. Whether it is fire safety, or a tornado drill, we all have familiarity in the necessity of being prepared in an unexpected disaster. When it comes to data protection, it is important to prepare for the worst and come out on top. Many businesses would struggle to survive at the loss of their critical data.

If this sounds overwhelming, don’t worry. Having an expert IT company like us can help you with your company backups and prevent severe data loss in the future. Contact us today for more info!

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