Effective backups for businesses: the ins and outs
An effective backup is more than just a copy of your data. It involves a number of best practices and technologies to ensure your data stays safe and intact. Key specifics include:
- Data encryption: robust encryption ensures your data is secure in transit and at rest.
- Proper authentication: This ensures that only authorized users have access to your backups.
- Backup integrity checks: Regular checks ensure that your backups are complete and error-free.
- Regular recoverability testing: This ensures that your backups are ready to use in case of emergency.
What must be considered when backing up databases
Database backups must ensure that no transactions are missing during the backup and that a consistent state exists after a restore. This is important to ensure data integrity and consistency of databases. Regular backups and adherence to recovery SLAs are necessary. As data volumes increase, the strategy should be adjusted.
Backups and the revision
Backups are not audit-proof without special additional services. Audit-proof means that the data must be stored in an unchangeable and traceable way over a certain period of time. To make backups audit-proof, there are special archive solutions that can be implemented: the so-called WORM storage solutions (Write Once, Read Many).
The regularity of backups is important
Depending on the importance of your data, we recommend daily backups for critical data and weekly or monthly backups for less central data. In cases where only minimal data loss can be tolerated, multiple daily backups may be appropriate. To schedule this, you’ll need your RPO and RTO.
With RPO and RTO to the optimal backup strategy
The RPO (Recovery Point Objective) and RTO (Recovery Point Objective) are parameters that help you better plan your backup and recovery strategies and align your business needs with IT capabilities.
- RPO (Recovery Point Objective): This parameter defines the maximum amount of data loss that can be sustained in units of time and specifies the time period since the last backup.
- RTO (Recovery Time Objective): RTO defines how quickly systems must be up and running again after a failure.
Backups and the storage space
For optimal security, backup storage should be at least twice the size of the data being backed up. Actual needs vary depending on backup type and frequency. To calculate exact storage needs, analyze the company’s own data, backup strategies and objectives.
Backup rotation to save space
If you use the backup rotation method, you can save precious storage space and still ensure that the latest data versions are backed up. With backup rotation, you simply replace older backups with newer ones at regular intervals.
Always check if the backup has worked
Regular restore tests are essential to verify the integrity of your backup. Make sure that you can successfully restore data from the backup. Take this opportunity to review and optimize the entire restore process.
When a backup fails, it’s important that you notice. So check the status of backups at least daily. If an error occurs, you should check all connections to make sure there is enough storage space. After analyzing the error message, you should make the necessary corrections or contact the support of your backup software.
The retention periods of backups
The retention period of your backups depends on regulatory requirements and specific business needs. However, it is advisable to keep at least the last three versions of your data to ensure sufficient recoverability.
How data recovery from backups works
Restoring data from a backup can vary depending on the backup solution used and the type of data loss. Generally, the process includes the following steps:
- Selecting the backup set that contains the data you need.
- Select restore location
- Perform recovery process with the backup software
- Verification of the restored data
Backup recovery at Open Circle
In the recovery case, the files and directories from the backup are loaded either to the original system or to a new one. Open Circle supports the entire recovery process.
Backup strategies for enterprises
Our backup strategies are tailored to the individual needs and requirements of our customers. Here are some of the strategies we use:
- The 3-2-1 Rule: This rule states that you should have three total copies of your data, two of them on different media or platforms and one copy offsite. This ensures robust backup and recovery.
- Georedundant backups: We replicate your data in a remote data center (Bern and Zurich) to provide additional protection against local disasters.
- Different backup periods: We offer different backup periods to meet the different needs of our customers. These range from a standard backup period of 14 days to an extended period of 90 days to 2 years.
This is why a backup with specialists like Open Circle makes sense
Many small and medium-sized businesses cannot afford to maintain multiple server rooms or operate a comprehensive IT infrastructure. In addition, they often lack specialized IT expertise. Therefore, they choose to outsource this area to subject matter experts such as hosting or cloud providers.
Conclusion: secure your business foundation!
A solid backup strategy is not a luxury, but a fundamental necessity. Open Circle offers customized, geo-redundant and customizable backup solutions that provide all-around protection against data loss and ransomware. With Open Circle as your partner, you ensure that your company data remains protected and accessible even in critical situations.