Considerations Before Initially Moving Data Offsite

You’ve done your business impact analysis, and have created an offsite backup and recovery plan. Now you’re ready to move your data to an offsite location. Here’s a little help making sure you’re asking the right questions to get you through the initial setup of your offsite backup, straight from our new Offsite Backup and Disaster Recovery Buying Guide. It’s complete with questions you should be asking your company in order to be ready for the move, as well as questions you should be asking your offsite backup and recovery provider to be sure everything goes smoothly.

Getting data offsite the first time

People often don’t realize how difficult it can be to move digital data until they need to move vast quantities of it in a short period of time. Will your current connection speeds be able to transmit it in an acceptable timeframe, and if so, will you incur any bandwidth charges? If not, will you drive it, fly it, or load a hardware appliance with a copy to deliver to your offsite location?

First, for all of the applications that were deemed a priority for recovery within hours or days, add up the total volume of data, or at least estimate the minimum and maximum amounts of data that need to be protected with offsite backup and recovery. For large initial volumes of data, you might need to load a drive or appliance at your production site, and coordinate delivery to your offsite backup and recovery provider. In other situations, installing a remote software agent may suffice.

Ask Yourself

• How much total data needs to be protected with offsite backup and recovery?
• Do you currently have the means to transmit your total volume of data digitally in an acceptable period of time for an acceptable cost?

Ask Your Provider

• What methods are available for getting the initial data offsite?
• How long will it take to get the initial data backed up?

With these questions answered, you should be able to create a plan to make moving day a little less hectic. Don’t forget, though, that this is only the first step, and in addition to figuring out how the initial move, there’s each of the regular day-to-day backups to plan for. To get more insight into getting newly generated data offsite each day, or if you would like to read more about offsite backup and recovery more generally, download our buying guide. It’s full of helpful information, as well as all the questions you should be asking potential offsite backup and recovery providers to make sure you get exactly the solution you need.