Services from datacenters in company offices, and on personal computers, require that your organization always be able to serve its clients, and consistently execute their necessary transactions. If these services fail, your company is at risk for losing thousands in revenue and clients. At some point your data is going to be at risk. Some realistic scenarios include mechanical or software error, viruses and natural disasters. Every company, sooner or later, will be in a situation where they are at risk of losing some, or all, very important company data.
What is Backup?
In computer terminology, backup means copying your files to another disk. This can be done through a tape backup, an external drive, a secondary machine, or a cloud hosted backup solution. It is important to have a backup solution in place. Backups protect your data in case of thefts, accidental deletion of important files, or technical issues like corrupted hard drives. With this protection in place, you can access a copy of your data and restore it within minutes.
What is Disaster Recovery?
Disaster recovery is similar to a backup, but is used for larger applications. A full image of your disk drives and servers is mirrored. The image allows you to restore the system more quickly than reinstalling an operating system and copying files, one by one. It doesn’t need to be a major incident, but a disaster can occur if your entire computer network crashes, and your employees can no longer work for that day or perhaps even longer. With disaster recovery plans, your employees can get back to work by using the image of the mirrored system.
Is Backup or Disaster Recovery better for my business?
Data backup is important. It is to your company’s advantage, that you upgrade to a disaster recovery plan, to insure full protection. The first step in this process is to store your backups off-site. This could be in another part of a building in case of a fire, or at a co-location facility in another city or state. A virtual machine with the correct disaster recovery data, can be restored less than an hour, or even within a few minutes.
As always, we at Aavex Technology Corporation, strongly recommend that your company have a comprehensive and secure backup and disaster recovery system in place. You should also monitor, and frequently test the integrity of your backups and disaster recovery systems.
Now that you understand the basics of backups and disaster recovery plans, Aavex Technology will offer your company a free consultation. Our experienced technical staff will work with you, to implement the best backup and disaster recovery plan for your organization. Call us anytime at 630–365-0025.
