Every Business Needs a Backup Plan

Lost data translates to lost money. Client information, tax records, product designs and other data storage all spell disaster if destroyed.

The mechanisms of loss are numerous. Hard drives fail. Fires and natural disasters destroy computers. Thieves steal more than just capital equipment when they take your only copy of business-critical records.

Loss of data goes beyond financial loss. Many businesses control customer information and they have both an ethical and a legal obligation to protect that information. For example, a mortgage company still has to provide 1098s even if their loan database has been destroyed.

From the sole proprietorship run from the kitchen table to the billion-dollar business with thousands of employees, every organization needs to have a disaster recovery plan for all of their information.

The Lesson of Hurricane Katrina

Businesses learned a sobering lesson from the disaster that hit New Orleans in 2005. Not only were they physically devastated but many of them lost all of their information. Those that had the financial resources to do so were left with no business to rebuild.

Even businesses with the foresight to use offsite data backup were ruined. They felt confident that data tapes miles away would survive any disaster such as a fire severe enough to destroy the company headquarters. However the damage from Katrina was so widespread that even the remote backup locations were destroyed.

Many of the businesses that survived the catastrophe used online server backups. With their data safely stored in far distant locations, they were able to restore their information once their businesses were operational again.

The Advantages Online Server Backup

When you use a service online, server backup becomes easy and reliable. The backup runs just like a traditional tape backup and can be scheduled or initiated manually.

Backing up to distant servers means that your information is saved from any disaster short of the Earth spiraling into the sun - in which case you probably have bigger problems than your business.

Not only is your information preserved in another location, but your backups have backups. Online server backup organizations run their own tape backups, adding yet another layer of security for your records.

Data transmission over the internet is perfectly safe through the use of cutting edge encryption technology that prevents anyone who doesn't have your password from accessing your information. Even the most powerful supercomputers wouldn't be able to crack the encryption if they worked for many trillions of years.

High speed internet connections make online backup fast and today's software makes it easy to backup, maintain, and restore your records.