Guide A small business guide to data storage and backup 0345 600 3936 www.sfbcornwall.co.uk
Contents Introduction... 3 Why is data storage and backup important?... 4 Benefits of cloud storage technology... 5 Drawbacks of cloud backup technology... 6 Understanding data backup and management systems... 7 Data storage management... 8 Security for data storage and management... 9 Your data storage and management checklist... 9 Further information... 11 Page 2 of 11
Introduction Data could be the most precious commodity your business possesses. Every day masses of information is collected by businesses from a wide variety of sources. Social media has of course caused an explosion in the quantities of data now generated. Your business is awash with information, but are you properly protecting this resource? According to research from CloudBerry backing up data is still not routine for many small businesses. Indeed, the research found that more than a third (36%) of respondents don t backup their data at all. With data security constantly in the headlines, as cybersecurity becomes an even more important component of every business, solid reliable data management systems are essential for your business. Alexander Negrash, Director of Marketing, CloudBerry Lab says: Threats to an organization s data used to be more straightforward - a hard disk would fail, or a server would get destroyed in a natural disaster. Although these threats are still here, we now deal with a whole new range of man-made threats. The recent rise in ransomware attacks, which hold data hostage from the enterprise, is one example. Data management is now more important than it has ever been. How your business collects, stores and manages data must be reliable to not only provide the information your business needs to operate profitably, but also good data management is changing with the introduction of GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) that comes into force in May 2018. Taking control of the data within your business means developing robust repeatable systems that your business can rely upon every day. Data is vital to all businesses, but it can often be overlooked or its value not recognised. Taking time to improve your business s data management could be critical to the long-term success of your enterprise. Page 3 of 11
Why is data storage and backup important? What if you switched your business s computers on tomorrow and you couldn t open any of the data relating to your customers? Or what if you couldn t use your employee payroll information? What about your accounts information that you rely upon to run your business profitably? Developing a strong data backup and storage system for your business has a number of essential components you need consider: Capacity since the inception of computerized systems, it has been true that quantities of data will always out-grow the storage capacity available. Perform a data audit on the information your business has today. Now look at how the data your business collects has expanded over the last three years. Building additional storage capacity into your data storage systems is the foundation onto which all other data management systems are built. Security who can access the data in your business? Your business s security policy should clearly state this. All data that is stored in the cloud for instance should be fully encrypted as it is moved to and from your business. In addition, consider how sensitive data is used on mobile devices, which your staff could use remotely. Your data security policy should state who and how this information can be used. Scalability your business is expanding and so will your data storage needs. Whether your business has on-site data storage, cloud-based or a combination of both, the systems your business uses must be able to expand, as your business needs also evolve. This is why cloud-storage, which offers near infinite capacity is highly popular as a data storage platform. Performance it is vital that your business can access the data it needs efficiently. As your data is increasingly being accessed remotely, the backup and data storage systems your business uses need to be efficient. This is especially important with cloud-based data storage services, which rely upon fast Internet connections. Test any services your business is interested in at different times of the day to see how the performance is affected. As your business may have spent several years and thousands of pounds collecting and generating data, it is critical to the future success of your business to have strong data backup and management systems in place. Page 4 of 11
Benefits of cloud storage technology The cloud has transformed how businesses operate today. When data backup and management is considered, cloud-based services offer especially small business owners fast, reliable and scalable services for competitive prices. Using the cloud for your business s data needs offers many key advantages: Cost this is often the key reason for choosing cloud-based services, as they can be cheaper than adding more hard drive capacity to your business, or expanding the memory of any on-site servers you may have all without the other advantages that the cloud offers. The price of cloud storage continues to fall. Look for data storage packages that are often sold as subscriptions with a sliding scale of cost as your storage capacity needs expand. Convenience and flexibility your business could be using cloud storage services in minutes, as you just need to open a new account and buy the storage capacity you need. As these are hosted services, you can buy more space when your business needs it. This frees you to concentrate on other aspects of your business. However, consider the time and cost to migrate all your existing data to the cloud service before committing to lengthy subscription periods. Security the cloud is now one of the most secure environments for your business s data. Data that moves to and from the cloud should be fully encrypted end-to-end. In addition, your cloud service provider should also encrypt your stored data for an added level of protection if their servers were ever the victim of a cyberattack. Page 5 of 11
Drawbacks of cloud backup technology Using the cloud for data storage and as a vital part of your business s data management does have disadvantages that need to be assessed: Internet downtime as your business s data can only be accessed in the cloud, if your connection to the Internet is disrupted you cannot use your data. Look at the stated uptime the cloud service provider states in the Service Level Agreement. Also, if their servers went down, you would not be able to access your data then either. Security this aspect of cloud services has continued to improve. Robust security is now in place, but cyberattacks are still possible. Many businesses hold their most sensitive information in-house on their own servers with less important information in the cloud. This hybrid approach could be suitable for your business. Ask yourself how sensitive your information is, and whether you are comfortable placing this in the cloud. Inflexible systems consider how the service provider organises the data they are storing for your business. If in the future, you want to move to another service provider can this be easily completed? Some cloud-based services use proprietary software to lock in their customers. Look for service providers that have open flexible systems. The cloud isn t a panacea for your business s data needs. Use all the robust due diligence when buying a cloud service, that you would apply when purchasing any new systems for your business. The cloud offers a number of advantages especially for smaller enterprises, but these services need to fully integrate with every other aspect of your business to fully unlock their potential. Ultimately, the data backup and management services your business chooses will rely upon, to varying degrees, a fast connection to the Internet. Superfast Broadband has enabled cloud-based service including data storage to evolve and more importantly, operate efficiently. Think about the broadband connection your business has as the pipe to your cloudbased data storage. The faster you can push data through that the pipe the better, which is why your business should assess not only its data storage and management needs when using cloud-based services, but whether your business needs to upgrade its broadband connection to take full advantage of the services the cloud offers. It is worth remembering that your upload speed is slower than your download speed to make sure you use the right figures. Page 6 of 11
Understanding data backup and management systems When developing a data backup and storage strategy for your business consider: Backup hardware and software how much data your business needs to backup will influence which technologies you will use. If your data backup needs are small, external hard drives now offer terabytes of storage capacity for low cost. SSD (Solid State Drives) often found in notebook PCs are inherently more reliable, as they have no moving parts unlike traditional hard drives, which can easily fail, but they are at the moment ten times more expensive per megabyte stored than standard hard drives. Locating your backups your business could store its data locally on hard drives or move to cloud-based storage. However, many businesses use both by creating a hybrid data storage and management system. More sensitive information such as accounts and customer records are kept in house, with product data for instance stored online for easier access by remote workers. Think about the data in your business and whether a wholesale move to the cloud is reliable. Using virtualized storage systems no two businesses use their data in the same way. Often, some data is accessed much more than other records. Moving the data that gets high access rates to a virtualized system could vastly improve performance. In essence, the cloud service providers move these records to special flash storage, which has very fast access times when compared to standard hard drive storage. Balancing the data on the flash drives with the data on traditional hard drives optimizes the access time for your business making it much more efficient. Backup or redundancy? often thought of as the same thing, they offer very different approaches to data management: Data backup takes a copy of your data and over time builds up an historic record of the data your business has stored. If you then need to access an older record you have archived, the backed-up files enable you to do this. Redundancy on the other hand is adding one or more additional hard drives to your systems which mirror each other. If one drive fails the other drive automatically takes over, as it has an exact copy of the data on the failed drive. Remember, redundancy is not a replacement for backups. Backup technologies to choose there are many data backup technologies to choose from. LTO (Linear Tape-Open) use magnetic tape to make backups of your business s data. Now at LTO-6, this technology offers storage capacity of 2.5TB with 6.25TB when compression is used. RDX is a removable disk technology, which can deliver scalable solutions for businesses that need to archive terabytes of data. These are physical forms of data backup. Your business can also use hard drives arrays (hard drive disks connected-together) for data backup, or even high performance external drives that connect to your computers via USB. And of course, cloud-based storage services can also be used. Page 7 of 11
Data storage management The management of the information in your business is just as important as how it is backed-up and stored. Having comprehensive data management systems ensures your business can make the most of the information it has collected. There are key steps your business can take to improve its data management: 1. Audit your data To create better data management systems, you need to understand where the information in your business is located and in what format it is held. Structured (data in your customer database for instance) and non-structured information (social media content for instance) should be assessed. 2. What kind of backup and storage? When you have a clear understanding of the type, format and quantity of data in your business, you can then match this to the right backup and management service. 3. Backup location All your business s data doesn t need to be held in the same place. Your data audit will identify groups of data that need different types of backup and storage. Match the data type to the storage system to gain maximum efficiency for your business. 4. Monitor backup storage Backing up and storing your business data isn t a file and forget task. You should schedule regular checks on your backed-up data to ensure it can still be accessed (hard drives have not failed or become corrupted) and that you have the capacity for future backups to take place. This should be part of your business s continuity planning. 5. Automate your systems To ensure data backups are not forgotten, install automatic backup software, which can take care of this task for you. Usually run at the end of the working day, you can choose which data is backed-up and to which location depending on the type of data you have created. Page 8 of 11
Security for data storage and management The security of the data your business is managing and storing begins with you. You must have a data security policy that clearly states who can access which data types. This is how you authenticate the identity of anyone accessing the data. Simple security steps including strong passwords that are changed regularly must also be a part of your business s data management strategy. This is what is called authentication, and is your first level of data security. Authorisation is the next type of security your business could implement. This isn t the same as authentication, as authorisation decides who is going to be given the passwords to access the data. The data your business stores can also be encrypted. This can take place on your premises before the data is moved to the cloud or other storage location, or on the data s final storage location. Your cloud service provider will often take care of this for you, as part of their data protection protocols. It is also good practice to store your business s data in different locations some of which should be off-site. Your archived accounts are a good example, where this data could be on a physical removable hard disk for tape and stored in your bank or other secure storage facility. Other data types could then be stored on your own on-site servers or in the cloud. Your data storage and management checklist The importance of developing and using a robust data storage and management system can t be overstated. Follow these steps to begin making your business s data accessible, safe and secure: 1. Understanding your data Before you begin to look for a data storage and management solution, look closely at the data your business already has structured and unstructured, and what it is likely to collect in the future. This is the foundation of good data management. 2. Your data policy How your business collects, stores, manages and uses its data should be clearly defined. The data policy you create should reflect how your business approaches its data responsibilities today (Data Protection Act) and in the future (GDPR). Page 9 of 11
3. Security and authorisation Many of the data security beaches small businesses suffer are because of poor control of data access. The issuing of passwords and who can access data when working off-site should be clearly defined with relevant policies to ensure compliance. 4. Backup your data The masses of data flowing into your business need to be placed in appropriate storage and then backed-up regularly. Develop data backup as a habit and not an afterthought. Your daily back-ups can easily be automated. 5. Locations for your data Some businesses still keep their backed-up files in the same location as the originals. If a major disaster were to befall these businesses, they would not be able to recover the information they lost. Think about where you store your information and how secure it is from cyberattack, as well as environmental impacts. 6. Monitor your data back-ups With easy access to low-cost cloud-based storage, you may be lulled into thinking that once these services are set-up, your data back-up responsibilities have ended. Your business must keep a regular check on the integrity of the data you are storing to ensure it can still be accessed. Your business knows how important the data it collects is to its overall profitability. However, many small businesses don t take data management as seriously as they should. As Symantec states: The rapidly changing threat landscape and growing compliance and legal discovery requirements are creating additional risks, further complicating the information management challenge. Don t delay, develop your data back-up and management systems today. Page 10 of 11
Further information Best Practice Guide to Small Business Protection: Backup Your Small Business Information http://eval.symantec.com/mktginfo/enterprise/other_resources/bbest_practice_guide_to_sb_protection_20996160.en-us.pdf Backup and Recovery Approaches Using AWS https://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/storage/backup_and_recovery_approaches_u sing_aws.pdf GDPR Explained: An Essential Overview of the Facts and Myths https://www.ukfast.co.uk/whitepapers/gdpr-explained-an-essential-overview-of-thefacts-and-myths.html The Business Implications of Not Having a Backup Strategy: Where Businesses Get it Wrong https://www.gfi.com/whitepapers/the_business_implications_of_not_having_a_back up_strategy.pdf Page 11 of 11