On the fourth day of CloudMas Dataquest Group offered me…

December 8, 2020

Four copies of my data

If you’ve read the other posts, you’ll know on days one and two, we concentrated on explaining the benefits of a relationship with DataQuest Group as your Cloud Services partner. On day three and now on day four we’re beginning to get under the bonnet of our offering and talk more about our total Cloud solution itself.

Your business is likely to be very reliant on all the data you have sloshing about in it; it’s the lifeblood of what you do and how you do it. Like most agile modern businesses you will undoubtedly be creating more, using it more effectively and understand the value locked up within it – as long as you always have access to it.

Before you even consider the number of criminals targeting your business, some to steal important data, some to pretend to be you to con your clients and others ready to lock up your data so you cannot work until you pay the ransom, you also have to think about all the ways you could lose business-critical data.

Keeping your data safe is as easy as 1-2-3

To combat technical problems with hard drives, tapes, servers, etc., and the potential for files to be corrupted, lost or damaged by people within your business, you are advised to follow the old 3-2-1 rule. Which could have been the first three days of this campaign, given the importance of your data and keeping it safe.

Adopting a 3-2-1 backup strategy, ensures you have access to an intact and fully recoverable copy of your data, should disaster or stupidity strike. You can do most of it yourself of course, but DataQuest can support you with Cloud services that combine backup and disaster recovery into one confidence-instilling solution.

The concept is a simple one and is still effective, but can be brought up to date thanks to increasing Cloud service options and reducing cost. Let’s remind ourselves of the rule, then we’ll look at better options that might ensure your business is ready to go after Christmas and not facing a ransom to access your data.

The 3 – refers to the minimum number of copies of your data you should have, ideally taken over different periods, which allows you to recover if an accident or other issue affects one or more versions of your data. The only limit to the number of copies should be cost and your ability to manage them.

The 2 – refers to the need to make and keep copies of your data on different media. You should not have copies of your data on the same media for obvious reasons. If they both require mains power to retrieve the data and they’re in the same building that loses power, your stumped. Your backup should be on different media to the original.

The 1 – refers to the need to ensure not all your copies are in the same location, at least one copy should be off-site. In the past, tape backups were particularly popular and someone was tasked with taking the copy home. However, Cloud now makes the entire process simpler and off-site can be well away from your office.

You have no excuses with Cloud

Now for a lot of businesses, all of the above would be enough, in fact for most it would be more than they currently carry out and offers a degree of protection, despite only around half of all businesses admitting they don’t undertake daily backups.

However, for those that take data security really seriously like we do, data can be stored, worked with, copied and backed up to different Clouds, because safe is never safe enough, given the worsening cyber threat environment.

Not only can you store and use your data in a Private Cloud tailored to your exact needs, based in one of our Tier 3 highly secure datacentres, but our Backup as a Service (BaaS) solution will take care of the need for current copies of your data, which makes recovery of lost or damaged files simple and quick.

If you need peace of mind that you can recover your entire business, data and applications, to a different location or to support a dispersed workforce due to a disaster striking your office, then our Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) solution is worth a look.

By now our argument for discovering the DataQuest difference should prove compelling, but If you need more convincing, please get in touch with our leaping Cloud lord Chris Baker, on 0333 800 8800 or email [email protected].