10 Signs You Need To Rethink Your Backup and Recovery Strategy

Data protection is vital for the long-term survival of your organisation. So in the face of exponential data growth, increasing infrastructure complexity, and new technological strategies such as cloud, virtualisation and BYOD, businesses must continually review whether their legacy backup and recovery systems are fit for purpose.

Here are 10 sure-fire signs that your backup routine is in need of an overhaul and your recovery strategy requires a rethink.

1. Not enough hours in the night (or day!)

If your overnight backup routine is still running as staff start to arrive for work in the morning, this is a sure sign it’s time to upgrade your solution.

2. Too many backup processes

As your business grows and data stores multiply, you may find yourself relying on several backup processes, even custom scripts, to protect your business data. Organic growth can result in a confusing combination, which requires hours of management time and offers no clear restoration plan. So it’s time for a unified approach that will streamline your backup and recovery procedure in a single solution, optimised to support every key application and environment.

3. Endpoint data is not being protected

Endpoint data is the most overlooked content in the backup strategy of SME businesses, although the files saved to desktops and stored on portable devices often present the greatest risk of data loss and compromise. At the same time, mobile users are demanding more flexible access to data to increase their productivity on the move. So if your current backup and recovery strategy does not include endpoint protection, it may be time to consider a solution that does.

4. You’re not confident you could restore your data quickly enough

Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) are two of the most important factors in any disaster recovery or data protection plan. How much work can you afford to lose and what are the specific timeframes within which your critical applications need to be recovered? If you are unsure whether or not your current system would provide adequately rapid recovery to satisfy your SLAs, then it’s time to consider a new backup solution.

5. Backups are affecting performance

If you are streaming online backups and this process is consuming too much bandwidth or network processing power, it’s time to rethink your backup strategy. Modern solutions are designed to limit the impact on production resources, so you can enjoy protection without affecting performance.

6. Excessive data duplication

Files have a way of proliferating across your network with individuals and departments often saving multiple copies of the same data. As part of any backup review, your IT partner should be advising you on how to reduce storage costs and increase efficiency by implementing a logical data structure that works for your whole organisation. Understanding how your data is structured is the starting point in backing it up and planning for its restoration in the event of a disaster.

7. Your backup process lacks support for the cloud

Many organisations that have not already migrated to a full-blown hosted environment are running some form of hybrid solution with key elements of data being held in the cloud. So if your current solution does not support backup and recovery across physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure, it may be incapable of satisfying your current needs as well as limiting your future options.

8. You thought DR for all applications would be too expensive

It is true that some disaster recovery solutions are very costly and this has led many companies to take a select approach in their DR strategy, only choosing to protect specific, high-priority business applications. But when did you last ask your IT partner for a quote? Modern backup and recovery techniques for SMEs are now able to offer complete protection, whilst significantly reducing recovery times – and at prices that may surprise you.

9. Too much manual intervention required

If backup routines are taking up too many man-hours in terms of configuration, management and monitoring, they are not working in the best interests of your organisation. A modern backup and recovery system should be automated to provide protection you can rely on, without the need for excessive manual checks by your staff who have other, more productive tasks on which to focus.

10. It failed you when you needed it the most

Let’s hope it didn’t come to this. But if you found out the hard way that your backup and recovery system was inadequate, it’s definitely time for a rethink.

Conclusion

Each of the symptoms described is an indicator that your data protection strategy is in urgent need of review. So how many apply to your own situation? Even if it is one or two, there is no need to live with the inconvenience or uncertainty. A free CST consultation with will help clarify the options at your disposal and may put your mind at rest.

For more information on backup and recovery options for SME businesses, please contact our specialist team:

By phone: +44 (0)20 7621 7836

By email: info@cstl.com