The best time for any business owner to think about cloud data backup and recovery is before you need it. If you have security and privacy protocols already in place you can extend them to your cloud strategy, but you still want to take a comprehensive approach to securing your data in the cloud. “Piecemeal implementations can expose the business to risks such as security breaches, loss of private information, which can open the business up to legal liabilities, and loss of important data,” says Linda Yang, a Silicon Valley-based professional. The following simple steps can create a comprehensive implementation strategy for securing your cloud data.
Assess Your Risk Level
The first step in any comprehensive cloud data storage plan is to know what company data is mission critical. “You have to decide what’s on premise that would be irretrievable,” says Ann Arbor, MI-based IT consultant Harvey Juster. “Depending on your business, it could include emails, sales documents, financials.”
Know Your Resources
Next, assess your company’s ability to implement and maintain cloud data storage and backup. This includes human resources as well monetary constraints. Questions to consider: how much time (or how many FTEs) is available to manage your systems? How much knowledge do those individuals have (which directly relates to how much time)? How much money are you willing to spend upfront, and on-going?
Know Your Options
As with any software or application, a tool alone will not ensure better systems; it is only as good as the people using them. “With the right settings, integrations and customizations, cloud-based applications can offer more security, more accessibility, and better redundancy,” says Yang.
In particular, you want to find a cloud storage provider that offers compression and block level backup and deduplication. Data compression reduces storage costs as it can cut the amount of physical storage space required by a third. Block level backup and deduplication can minimize how much data you need to upload each day, so that only new data is saved since the last backup. “With deduplication, if you have a file saved in two folders, the backup is smart enough to know that it was backed up in folder one so won’t back up in folder two,” says Juster.
Check Your Bandwidth
While data compression and deduplication can cut down data flow, backing up each night in an eight-hour window can prove challenging. “You may need a faster Internet connection,” says Juster. Check your data plan as upload speeds are usually slower than download speeds. “When backing up to the cloud, a spend of 25Mbps down, 5Mbps up is common. “You may need to increase the upload speed by 5Mbps or 10Mbps if the backup window isn’t large enough between days.”
Another option to manage backup time is to backup data onto a feed drive or portable hard drive as an intermediary step. “Instead of backing up directly to the cloud, you can backup onto a server, which becomes a C drive,” says Juster. “Everything after is then the difference between what’s on the feed and the server and so on.”
Lastly, you’ll need to make sure you spend time learning about cloud solutions and comparing them, updating existing software or hardware to ensure compatibility with the new tools, and setting aside time for the initial cloud migration. You may even want to test your cloud backup from time to time to ensure it’s working properly.
Developing a cohesive cloud strategy up front not only offers an opportunity to refresh your systems and create efficiencies by using cloud-based tools that work well together. You’ll also rest assured that your business is protected no matter where your files are stored.
SooJi Min is a freelance writer and nonprofit executive based in Ann Arbor, MI. She has written on small business topics for Crain’s, Imagination Publishing and The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.