Rate your businesses backup capability against our Backup Scorecard^®

A company-wide backup solution is like the plumbing in a hotel. When it’s working, no one pays any attention to it, it’s totally invisible. However, when it fails, it fails hard and the result is not pretty!

The stress of receiving an alert about a data breach, hardware failure or device theft rates right up there with getting a call as you’re boarding a plane to say there’s smoke pouring out of your house. Sounds dramatic because, well, it is. But it doesn’t have to be.

The difference between a disaster that costs your company millions, versus a minor blip you can bounce back from, depends heavily on your data backup and recovery solution.

The good news is we’ve put together our Backup Scorecard® so you can find out how your backup solution stacks up.

Is your backup solution automated?

• No = 1
• Yes = 2

The days of relying on Jim from IT to remember to swap out tape or external disks every few days to maintain the integrity of your grandfather-father-son backup system are, thankfully, long gone.

As a golden rule for all things IT-related, if you rely on humans to perform boring, repetitive tasks day-in and day-out, sooner or later, a hungover Jim is going to swap out the wrong drive and bam! There go July’s backups.

If your backup solution isn’t automated, make it a top priority and save yourself untold amounts of unnecessary pain in the future.

Where do your backups happen?

• On physical devices only = 1
• In the cloud only = 2
• Both = 3

This one is up for debate. There’s a strong argument to be made for a cloud-only backup solution because regular cloud backups mean you never have to worry about:

• Employees losing devices in the pub, spilling coffee on them, driving off with them balanced precariously on car roofs or anything else that results in their loss or destruction
• Devices or sensitive data being stolen or hacked
• Ransomware attacks
• Accidental deletion of mission critical or sensitive data
• ‘Acts of God’ such as earthquakes, fires or other large-scale disasters destroying the devices on which your data is stored

However, a best-of-both world’s solution (ie backing data up in the cloud and on storage devices or servers owned by the business) means that in the unlikely event that your cloud backups become compromised, your data is still safe.

Just don’t keep your backups on premise, that way should something catastrophic happen to your offices, your data won’t be affected.

How often does the business backup data?

• Monthly = 0
• Weekly = 1
• Daily = 2
• Multiple times a day = 3

The time period between backups is the Recovery Point Objective (RPO). Think of it as the amount of work and data you are prepared to give up in the case of data loss. A shorter RPO means less data loss potential, but you will also need a more sophisticated backup system with a bigger storage capacity.

Some companies use an RPO of 24 hours, meaning there is only one backup created per day. You may also have a different RPO time for different parts of your data based on your priorities. This way you can back up the most crucial data more often. Your data backup and recovery system should be able to scale to your storage objectives.

Recovery Time Objective (RTO) refers to the overall time it takes for you to recover your backed up data in case of software / hardware failure and to get back to normal operations.

For a more robust backup policy, you may want data to be stored several times a day. This allows more control and ensures business continuity. This can scale down into the past so that RPO becomes longer the further back you go. For example, your RPO for the first month could be eight hours, for the next six months, 24 hours; and then finally a week after 12 months.

How often do you test your backup solution?

• Not sure, let me ask Jim… = 0
• Yearly = 1
• Every six months = 2
• Once a month = 3

Can your data backup and recovery system handle regular tests and challenges? Even the best systems should be stress-tested to ensure that everything is working as it’s supposed to. You’ll want to be able to answer the following questions after the test:

• Is the backup successful and the data secure?
• Does the restoration process run smoothly?
• Do the relevant team members know what to do and when to do it?
• Has the test surfaced any glitches or problems?

To stretch the plumbing metaphor to its absolute limit, a system that supports regular testing will ensure that should something go wrong, the business isn’t left knee-deep in loo-water.

Many aspects of the recovery process can be automated, but there will always be the need for some human intervention. Your system should allow you to set different roles and permissions to people in the organisation to deal effectively with a crisis.

How would you rate the ease of setting up and managing your current backup solution?

• It took more than a week to setup and it spits error messages out daily = 0
• Managed to set it up in a matter of days, but it’s a pain to manage = 1
• Setup took a day or less, management is straightforward = 2
• Setup took a matter of hours, my gran could manage it = 3

Did setting up your current system make you feel like you were trying to solve a Rubik’s cube blindfolded? Does the UI look like it was designed by the team behind www.userinyerface.com?

If your interface is harder to parse than it is to use, it’s time for a change. It’s not the most essential aspect of the system, but a good UI does make it easier to configure and set up data backup and recovery processes. You should be able to set up and deploy a full data backup and recovery system without it leaving you frustrated.

Where does your backup solution sit on the cost vs benefit spectrum? 

• Cost: ????? Benefit: ? = 0
• Cost: ????     Benefit: ? = 1
• Cost: ???       Benefit: ? = 2
• Cost: ??            Benefit: ? = 3
• Cost: ?                Benefit: ? = 4

How much are you willing to pay for a feeling of security? The answer for many businesses is is “a lot”. However, you shouldn’t have to feel like your budget is being held hostage by your data storage plan.

Cloud infrastructure has made long-term and flexible storage far more cost-effective. You can scale the size of the service you need with your exact requirements. A small business shouldn’t have to pay steep fees for a few employees and enterprises should be able to get the benefit from large-scale storage and recovery solutions.

How did you score? 

• ? 18 Points ?
  • Your backup solution is watertight, no bad plumbing issues in your hotel, pat yourself on the back for a job well done

• ?? 12-17 Points ??
  • Eighty percent of the time your backup solution will handle anything fate throws at it. With our help, we can get you to 100%
  • ?? Call us ??

• ? 6-12 Points ?
  • Your backup solution is clunky at best. Expensive, tricky to manage and reliant on manual processes, it’s only a matter of time before something goes wrong
  • ?? Call us ??

• ? 0-6 Points ?
  • You are currently running the Chernobyl of backup systems. It’s not a question of if, but when. No need to lose any sleep over it though, the solution couldn’t be easier…
  • ?? Call us ??

Jokes aside, the backup solution we offer clients can do everything mentioned above and more. It’s scalable, affordable and very easy to set up and manage – give us a shout at contact@relltek.com or Contact Relltek on +44 (0)203 0922 787 and let’s have that chat.