Local Or Cloud Backup? The Answer May Lie In-Between For Your Business

March 31, 2022

by Prototype:IT

Local or Cloud Backup

Most companies are familiar with data back-ups at some level, even if simply knowing that their data is being backed up—somewhere. And these back-ups are certainly essential for businesses of all sizes to implement, regardless of size, industry, and geographic location. But are you aware of the difference between a business continuity solution versus traditional backups? This month we’ll explain that difference and how your internal recovery needs and downtime costs may serve as guides to the best solution for your business.

First, let’s discuss downtime and the fact that it’s real and it’s costly. How costly exactly? Depending on the size of your business, the cost per hour of downtime is anywhere from $9,000-$700,000. On average, a business will lose around $164,000 per hour of downtime.  The numbers speak for themselves.

What causes downtime? While it could be several things, network outages and human error account for 50% and 45% of downtime. Meanwhile, natural disasters account for just 10 percent of downtime.  As it turns out, businesses should be warier of their employees and less of natural disasters.

Next, let’s look at what’s at stake.  90% of the total data in existence was created within the past few years, a significant portion of which has been generated by small businesses.  Considering all the servers, desktops, and laptops that the typical SMBs manage, it adds up to a lot of data to protect.

Yet nearly 75% of SMBs operate without a disaster recovery plan and only 25% are “extremely confident” that they can restore data if it was compromised. Only 50% of SMBs back up less than 60% of their data. The remaining 40%? No protection for it whatsoever. So, what is the cost to businesses? Over the past few years, 35% of SMBs lost as much as $500K due to downtime. An unlucky 3% lost over $1 million.

What happens when disaster strikes? Businesses must scramble to retrieve important data. According to IDG, it takes an average of 7 hours to resume normal operations after a data loss incident, and 18% of IT managers say that it takes 11 to 24 hours, or even longer. Small wonder that 40% of all businesses close their doors permanently after a disaster, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Using local backup for business continuity works well for quick restores. Because the data is right there, it’s fast and easy to restore to its original location and keep the business humming. But what happens if the power goes out? If the device fails? Or if it is stolen or destroyed in a natural or man-made disaster? And you might think the cloud looks more attractive for all these reasons. But cloud-only backup is risky because you can’t control the bandwidth. Restores tend to be difficult and time-consuming.

A Business Continuity solution, on the other hand, involves thinking about the business at a
higher level and asking “how quickly can I get my business operating again in case
of system failure?” Thinking about data backup is a good first step, but business continuity is equally important to consider as it ensures your organization can get back up and running in a timely matter if disaster strikes. For example, if your server dies, you wouldn’t be able to quickly get back to work if you only had a file-level backup. Your server would need to be replaced, software and data re-installed, and the whole system would need to be configured with your settings and preferences. This process could take days. Can your business afford to lose that time?

If considering enhanced business continuity and disaster recovery for your business, here are some key things to look for when seeking a business continuity solution:

  • Hybrid cloud backup—A hybrid approach fixes the vulnerabilities that a cloud-only or local-only possesses.
  • Superior Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) —Think in terms of business continuity rather than simply backup and calculate how much downtime your business can endure and still survive (RTO) as well as how much data you can afford to lose (RPO).
  • Image-based backup—Make sure that the backup solution takes images of all data and systems rather than simply copying the files.

In conclusion, while most small businesses may not have the same size IT budget as larger enterprises, the risks facing their business data are the same. Data backup solutions come in all different flavors and no matter what solution you chose, implementing data backup and business continuity should be a priority for your organization.

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