Data Backup and Recovery

What is a data backup?

Backups are copies of computer data, such as contracts, drawings, recipes, forecasts, quality data, compensation plans, and other contents stored on a hard drive. The verb backup means to make a copy of a computer file or other data to protect against accidental loss or corruption.

Types of Backups

There are many different types of backups, each serving its purpose.

• Standard backups focus on creating copies of files from one or multiple systems across a network.
• System backups are complete copies of a system, including the settings and preferences of the operating system. Depending on the need or capabilities of a business, many perform scheduled backups of files while having system backups for baseline configurations when new machines join the network.
• Incremental and differential backups focus on the changes between files on a system but are different in the focus of the changes. A differential backup will only back up any files that have changed since the last backup. Incremental backups, on the other hand, only backup the changed data found in files. Between these two types of backups, incremental backups are considerably faster than differential backups.

What is a backup strategy?
Clearly defined data protection goals that direct data backup and recovery policy actions. The strategy outlines what, when, and how data, applications, and systems will be backed up and restored to a usable state for business purposes.

What is the backup policy?
A defined policy with set schedules allows the independent disk to receive copied data for recovery. The backup system ensures the ability to recover from accidental data deletion, corruption events, or hardware failure that causes an outage. The data backup and recovery policy procedure minimize data loss and system downtime.

What is data recovery?
When data of any kind is no longer readable or is affected by a malicious change, you have to undergo what is known as the data recovery, also known as a restore. Recovery is the act, process, or instance of recovering data from accidental loss or corruption.

Backup policies are data insurance policies and not merely an item on a checklist. Why do we make this distinction? Business owners continue to experience business interruption and financial loss because they believe they are protected. They pay their invoice each month and are told by their outsourced IT that they are protected.

These unverified claims go undetected until there is an urgent need to restore, typically from hardware failure or ransomware. When a service provider reports that you cannot recover because your data was not backed up, who is impacted the most by this discovery? As your service provider walks away with a minimal cash flow loss, you are left scrambling to keep your business alive and reputation intact.

There is a better method to protect your business from financial loss.

When it comes to keeping your information secure, price should not be a primary concern. The costs associated with data loss and system downtime are much more significant than the amount you’ll pay to keep your information safe from risks.

There are several ways businesses can lose data. Sometimes, mistakes in technologies cause residual loss of information. Other times, hackers manage to penetrate or circumvent companies’ strongholds, either stealing data for their malicious uses or stripping the business of its resources. The following represents the most common causes of data loss in descending order:

• Hardware malfunction
• Human error
• Software manipulation
• Computer virus
• Natural disaster

What’s more, the mean amount of time it takes for companies to realize that they’ve experienced a loss or breach in data is 197 days. With the right data breach and recovery capabilities, businesses that have contained their breach within 30 days saved more than $1 million compared to companies that took longer than 30 days to intervene.

When leadership teams inquire about a backup strategy, the insightful ask, “what is the backup plan to the backup plan”? A general rule that many businesses use is the 3-2-1 rule. This rule ensures that you have at least one copy of backups to restore if the primary copy is destroyed or damaged.

The 3-2-1 rule suggests that companies have at least three copies of their data, use two different storage media, and have one copy stored offsite. While having more than one copy is standard practice, business owners are sometimes confused about using two different media types.

If an event where one storage device becomes corrupt or unusable, there is a chance that the other is still usable. The one offsite copy rule, this rule ensures that one backup is available in the instance that all data at your facility is not recoverable. Recently, many business owners incorporating cloud elements into their processes, including storing backups. Businesses can also keep physical copies of data in trusted storage sites if a cloud storage option is out of the budget.

When you work with a reputable data backup and recovery company, you can protect your critical data from loss and speed up your recovery from downtime events. As you become increasingly dependent upon real-time access to data, your business can maintain necessary compliance measures while bouncing back after being exposed to risk.

Certitude Security^® has a skilled team to help you design and support your secure data backup and recovery demands. We have a proven record, forged under pressure, of successfully returning business information and systems to the same production state where it was before the incident. We know how important it is to keep your data secure while keeping your business up and running. We’ve developed a systematic approach to storing and recovering your data as quickly and efficiently as possible.

We provide restores caused by user error, hardware failure, and application crashes that cause corruption.

• Simple file or folder restore.
• Volume restore.
• Virtual machine restore.

However, it’s essential to remember that a data recovery service needs to be in place before disaster strikes. Without a preemptive recovery solution, lost data may not be recoverable. A cautious, proactive approach is essential for securing data against the threat of loss.

If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.

Disaster Recovery

People often confuse backup and disaster recovery as the same service. Disaster recovery relies upon backup services to meet defined Recovery Point (RPO) and Recovery Time (RTO) objectives. Disaster recovery focuses on restoring vital IT operations. Vital systems are communications, core infrastructure hardware, and essential business applications necessary to service customer needs. Disaster recovery aims to minimize business downtime of critical workflows and focus on getting recovery back to an acceptable predefined level in the shortest time possible.

Business Continuity

Business continuity consists of a plan of action to ensure that regular business (operations, functions, and capabilities) will continue even during a disaster. Having a validated plan ensures your company is prepared to continue manufacturing quality products shipped and delivered on schedule.

This plan accounts for your people, buildings, equipment, contracts, and infrastructure to continue operations in any disruption. 

After your business is compromised and has lost a significant volume of data, you might wonder how long it takes to get it back. Depending on the amount of data lost, the number of systems impacted, and other factors defined by your backup policy, the process should take a few hours or days to complete.

Your incident and your backup and recovery strategy’s effectiveness define your specific loss case and recovery ability. If you do not regularly test and verify your backup and recovery process, you will become alarmed when you cannot recover.