12-27-21 | Blog Post
If you’re considering an enterprise backup solution for your company’s data, what are some of the things you should look for? How do you know if a solution is right for you? Here are three important factors to remember, and they’re as easy as ABC.
In a perfect world, the price of a service would be easy to determine. In the world of backup solutions for your business data, however, there are a lot of variables. And those variables can alter the price of the service considerably. When searching for a backup service provider, it’s important that you are completely aware of the costs. Can the service be customized to suit your company’s specific needs, or are you going to be paying for a one-size-fits-all solution that offers features that you don’t need?
How about what you’ll need in the future? Let’s face it: business needs change over time. Your backup solution should be able to keep up with those changes. Is the solution scalable? Can it still handle all of your needs if your business grows? What happens if your business doesn’t need as much in the future?
Another thing to think about when it comes to affordability: How much of your time, or your employee’s time, must be devoted to making your backup solution work? If you’re paying a backup provider for the service, shouldn’t that service be as time-saving (and, therefore, as cost effective) as possible for you?
We live in a time when businesses are generating more data than ever. This not only increases the amount of information we have, but also the likelihood of some of that data being lost due to equipment failure or a natural disaster. An effective backup solution should provide you a fast and simple recovery of your data, when you need it.
A couple of things that a lot of people fail to consider when looking into backup solutions is the storage of unstructured data and the need for a solution that handles data duplication and compression. Unstructured data includes videos, social media, emails, and other documents that don’t necessarily fit into the traditional database storage, and yet are essential to your business functions. When searching for a backup solution provider, it is important to understand if — and how — that provider’s solutions will store your unstructured data.
Every computer — from home to enterprise class — has the tendency to duplicate files, using up incredible amounts of space needlessly. Does your backup solution provide deduplication and compression so that your storage space is being used for what you need and only what you need?
With governmental regulations and a number of unfortunate data breaches making the news — and hitting people’s pocketbooks — in recent years, data security is more in the spotlight than ever before. Your cloud backup solution places the security of your data, along with your ethical and legal responsibility to protect that data, in the hands of another party. When shopping for a backup provider, it’s important to ask about how that provider protects the security and integrity of your information, as well as the information of the clients you serve.
Is the encryption process that this provider supplies compliant with the regulations? Is the provider able and focused on aggressively and proactively defending the security of your information? Are they willing to discuss how their solutions can be a partner in maintaining your compliance with regulations. If not, then keep looking for a provider who will.
In Closing
While the ABCs don’t cover all your bases, this is a good starting point for finding a backup solution provider. Would you like to know more? Contact us.
