Imagine this scenario. You arrive at the office on Monday morning ready to start your day. But your office has no power – your server and data center are silent, and you have no idea how long the power will be out. No data means no files and no productivity software. Without cloud-based data recovery and backup, your business is down until the power’s back on.
Power outages are not the only threat to your data center and productivity. Cyberattacks, hardware malfunctions and even pandemics make your data center vulnerable. Don’t wait until a disaster happens. Protect your data with backups and a recovery plan.
What Is Data Backup and Recovery?
Data backup is a copy of your business’ files. If data is corrupted or lost for any reason, you can restore it to the last backup point. Data consists of documents, applications, software and media.
Data recovery replaces lost file systems and reassembles any damaged files. Having your files backed up is not enough to restore your system. Data recovery restores your system to the last functioning point.
7 Reasons You Must Have Data Recovery and Backup
Many business owners don’t think about their data until it’s too late. Unfortunately, waiting until you have a data breach or data loss event is the worst time to start thinking about backups and recovery. Any one of the 7 problems below can strike a business without warning, and without data protection, your business could lose money, customers and irreplaceable documents and files.
1. Data breaches cost you customers
Losing customer data is every business owner’s nightmare. Customers give their personal data to businesses, expecting that their private information will be safe. But, every year, data breaches cost businesses time, money and customers. When your data is breached, information like credit card numbers, personal information and sensitive data are exposed. Once the data is out, customers find it difficult to trust the business, and many will go elsewhere. Over 20% of businesses that experience a data lost event also see their customers disappear. Your customers have entrusted their data to you. Are you willing to lose customers because you didn’t set up a data recovery and backup system?
2. Yes, criminals want your data
Your data is a gold mine to cybercriminals, and they are testing your system for vulnerabilities. Cyberattacks are a numbers game. The more data a criminal can access, the more they can exploit it. Each system vulnerability makes it easier for them to find sensitive information and to profit from it. They’re looking to mine your data as well as everyone else’s.
For years, you’ve worked on your documents, customer lists and data, and with just a few keystrokes, it could be gone. Having off-site backup and a recovery plan can ensure your data stays safe, even if a vulnerability gets exploited. Protect against cyberattacks by having your data backed up, secured and easily recovered with Azure Support.
3. Ransomware is a real threat to your data
Ransomware is malicious software that encrypts your data and holds it hostage, and it’s another way a cybercriminal can harm your business. After you pay the ransom, you may get your data back but, sometimes, not even then. While you’re worrying, hoping and waiting to get your system back up and running, your business is losing money, and productivity is nonexistent. It could take hours, days or weeks, depending on how malicious the attack was.
But, by having a complete backup of your files, you can remove the malicious software, recover and get back to business.
4. Day-to-day events can harm your data
Employees have access to your data, and you trust them to keep it safe. When an employee makes a serious mistake that affects a business’ data, however, it can be very costly. Unfortunately, it’s easy for someone to click on a link and download malicious software, designed to disrupt and harm businesses. Or, an employee could move or delete files inadvertently, keeping everyone who needs that file from being able to access it. Even worse, a disgruntled employee can wipe out a business’ data with a few keystrokes.
When a business has a data recovery and backup plan, no matter what unfortunate event occurs, your business will be back up and running again with its data intact.
5. Technology can malfunction and limit access to your data
Data centers age and wear out like everything else, and a failed local data center brings productivity to a grinding halt. Employees cannot access needed files, and they must now re-create every document, every file and every contact. What used to take minutes now could take hours to replicate.
Your bookkeeping files are inaccessible too. What happens if you don’t have paper backups of invoices, sales orders and work orders? How are you going to balance your books?
If you have a data recovery plan and backups, your business is safe from hardware failure, and you’re safe from business disruption and revenue loss.
6. Your data needs protection in the virtual office
COVID-19 has changed the business landscape. Instead of working in a confined network, your employees are now working from home. Not only must they have access to your business’ data, but the data must also be protected and secure. Each location becomes an access point that is vulnerable to attack. However, if your employees don’t have what they need, then your business stops being productive.
An online backup service like Nortec’s Azure Support allows access to company data whenever and wherever you need it. If a disaster strikes, workers can stay productive at home.
7. Downtime costs more than data backup and recovery
The average duration of downtime after a disaster is nearly 3 weeks. With the cost of downtime ranging between $10K to $5M an hour, businesses cannot afford a few hours of downtime, let alone weeks. A few million dollars is a significant amount of money, but the truth is, data breaches or other disasters can cost small business owners so much more than that.
Recent data shows that 40%-60% of small businesses never reopen after a disaster. When you factor in that around 43% of total data breaches involve small businesses, these numbers are even more harrowing.
Thankfully, backup and disaster recovery has become increasingly affordable. Nortec takes pride in working with small and medium-sized businesses to create business continuity plans, to manage their disaster recovery and backups entirely and to meet all of their other IT and security needs.
Data Recovery and Backup Offers Peace of Mind
Downtime is expensive. Cloud-based backup and recovery are affordable and scalable. In Azure, you only pay for what you need. It’s an affordable way to put a recovery plan in place. Don’t worry about how you’ll get your data back up when disaster strikes. Get the peace of mind you’re looking for by relying on Nortec’s Microsoft Azure Support to protect what matters the most – your data.
