This Saturday, March 31st is World Backup Day. ​Is your small business prepared? A simple backup is no longer sufficient to support your business when disaster strikes. Weather disasters, fires, power outages and human error can all result in data loss. Data backup is one of the most common examples of risk oversight in businesses today. These days, nearly all organizations have some kind of solution. This gives confidence that  the  organization  is  bulletproof  against  disasters. This  is often  not  the case.

How valuable is your organization’s data?

We regularly meet with local executives whose businesses have inadequate backup systems that are unreliable or completely neglected. There  might  be  a  copy of  the  data  some where, but it is often not tested on a regular basis. The only time those systems are tested are when data has been lost and needs to be recovered. At that point, it’s usually too late.

What would happen to your business if you lost everything? Can your business function offline for 24 to 72 hours? The top 4 causes for backup failure are:

• Network outage
• Server error
• Human error
• Ransomware

Take time this week to review your current business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) plan.

• Do you have a disaster recovery solution in place?
• Do you trust it?
• When was the last time your backup was tested?
• How long does it take to recover from your current backup solution?
• How long can you realistically be down? 1 hour? 1 day?
• What is the financial cost of downtime to your business?
• When a disaster occurs, is there an offsite copy?

A robust and modern backup should be monitored, tested and reviewed regularly. Keep your business secure with a bulletproof business continuity and disaster recovery plan.