Think of cloud backup like one proactive, preventative, sky-sized solution to things like hardware failures, security threats, and accessibility issues. Now, take that visual and try to keep it in mind as we take you through this one.
The concept of the cloud and cloud computing have been around for a while, but its prominence in our everyday lives grew quickly.
There are a few reasons we need to plan ahead when it comes to the cloud. We not only use it to store our pictures and videos, but also to backup work, recover files, and ensure continuity across our work. This article will take a look at some of these in more depth.
#1 Protect Your Work From Data Loss and Facilitate Version Control
By ensuring the transfer of information over the internet, the cloud naturally doesn’t save anything to specific devices, which means you should always be able to access your documents and easily keep tabs on a central version. This helps to protect your work from being lost in an event like a hardware failure, for example, and also helps to facilitate version control (not only for yourself, but organisation-wide too).
So, with that worry out of the way, we tackle the next, which is that data within the cloud itself can still be accessed and transferred without authorisation, but that’s where we at Xenex Systems come in.
Managed IT service providers like Xenex Systems are experienced in cloud data loss prevention. Cloud data loss prevention (or Cloud DLP) is basically a set of security measures put in place to help keep any data you store in the cloud from any unauthorised access or transfer, but that’s as far as we’ll go for now – a topic for another time.
Any data stored on physical devices can also be copied and transferred across to the cloud, which is an effective strategy that helps ensure a strong cloud backup and recovery approach. Organisations can and should implement this, to ensure important work and information can be restored if there’s ever an incident of data loss, corruption or other issue.
#2 Keep the Business Moving and Improve Transparency
Quick, easy and reliable cloud backup and recovery can help keep a business moving during major events such as hardware failures and cyberattacks, or even something small in comparison, like when a team member is away and others need access. For example:
- People within your organisation can read and update documents through the cloud – remotely and in the office.
- As trust in the cloud continues to build (noting nearly half of all Australian businesses are using the cloud in some way, shape or form), businesses can reduce their investment in and reliance on physical hardware for storage. This means cloud hosting could theoretically make a business more profitable.
- Scaling is made easier, especially with the way and speed in which data evolves these days.
#3 Ensure Protection Against Cyber Threats
To summarise so far, cloud backup and recovery strategies, along with the engagement of a dependable managed IT partner, can reinforce protection against cyberattacks and the threat of them.
When you look at the bigger picture, that means having a copy of organisational data in a secure, off-site location with encryption (ensuring data stays safe when it’s being transferred) and access controls (to prevent any unauthorised access).
Looking at the day-to-day, adding a second layer of security like two-factor authentication (or 2FA) can give you the edge over cybercriminals by ensuring unauthorised access to data is still prevented. So, not only would access require your password, but it would also require a second authorisation. These days, a second factor is typically an authenticator app, text message, phone call or email notification.
In conclusion, cloud backup and recovery strategies can be the difference between whether or not cyberattacks, data loss and more will impact your business, but can also manage the extent of which these things could impact your business.
If you’re looking for a security or managed IT partner that can assist with cloud backup and recovery, something completely different, or a combination of services, reach out to us at Xenex Systems. We’ll conduct a free IT systems audit and chat through any next steps.