World Backup Day Is An Important Reminder

World Backup Day 

World Backup Day, first celebrated in 2011, is an annual event (taking place on March 31) that’s dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of data backups and encouraging individuals and businesses to back up their important data regularly. 

The purpose of World Backup Day is to remind people about the importance of their critical data in case of data loss, theft, or damage to their devices. It has become a global movement with individuals, businesses and organisations participating in the event by promoting backup awareness, sharing backup tips, and encouraging others to take backups of their data. 

Why Backup? 

Data is now a critical asset of businesses and organisations and over 1.8 zettabytes of data is being generated per year (according to IDC Digital Universe), which is a lot to back up! 

If businesses don’t backup their data, they can be at risk of losing critical information that could have severe consequences, including: 

• Data loss. If a business experiences a data loss event (such as a system crash, hardware failure, cyber-attack, or natural disaster) and they don't have a backup in place, they can lose all their critical data.
• Downtime. If a business’s data is lost, it can take considerable time to restore systems and data. This can cause extended periods of downtime, which can negatively impact the business’s continuity, productivity, customer service, and revenue.
• No disaster recovery option. Many businesses now have disaster recovery plans in place with data backups as a central feature of them. Having no recent data backup available could seriously affect a business’s chances of recovering at all from a serious cyber-attack or fire, for example.
• Reputational damage. Losing critical data can also damage a business’s reputation. For example, if a business’s customer data is compromised due to a data breach and they don’t have a backup, they can lose the trust of their customers, leading to a loss of existing and future business.
• Legal and regulatory compliance issues. Many businesses are required by law to keep certain types of data for a specified period. Failure to do so can result in legal and regulatory compliance issues. 

That said, according to a Backblaze survey, nearly 30 per cent of people say they have never even backed up their data. 

How Can Data Be Lost? 

There are many ways that critical business can be lost such as theft (theft of hardware and cyber-attacks), hardware failure or loss of a device, natural disaster, fire/flood/damage to premises and equipment, and obsolete file formats. 

Backup What? 

According to World Backup Day sources, items to back up data from should include your computer, laptop, phone, iPod, tablet, other wireless devices, photos and even videos on social networks. 

Backup Options 

One of the goals of World Backup Day is to make people aware of the different backup options. There are two main types of backup solutions: 

• Local backup. An external hard drive that can be easily retrieved at home.
• Cloud/offsite backup. An online backup service or hard drive is securely placed in a different location. 

Having both local and offsite backups can give businesses peace of mind, knowing files are safe and secure should anything happen.  

Regular, Reliable, And Secure 

When backing up data, it is important to make sure that the chosen backup option is safe and reliable, has been set up correctly and has been tested, and that it happens automatically and regularly. 

In general, businesses should backup their data regularly to minimise the risk of data loss and ensure that they can quickly recover from any data loss event. 

A good rule of thumb for businesses is to perform daily backups of critical data, including customer data, financial data, and other mission-critical information. For less critical data, such as email or other non-essential files, weekly or monthly backups may be sufficient. 

However, it’s important to note that businesses should also consider the type of backup solution they use. Some backup solutions allow for continuous backup, which means that data is backed up in real time as changes are made. This can provide an extra layer of protection against data loss and ensure that the most recent version of the data is always available. 

Cloud Is The Popular Option 

Most businesses now opt for cloud backups. 95 per cent of small businesses and 85 per cent of all businesses store data or backups in the cloud.

Using the cloud for backups offers several benefits, including: 

• Scalability. Cloud backup solutions are highly scalable, allowing businesses to easily increase or decrease the amount of storage space they need as their data needs change. This can help companies to save money by only paying for the storage they use.
• Cost-effectiveness. Cloud backup solutions can be more cost-effective than traditional backup methods, as businesses don’t need to invest in expensive hardware or hire additional IT staff to manage backups.
• Accessibility. Cloud backup solutions allow businesses to access their data from anywhere, as long as they have an internet connection. This can be particularly useful for remote teams or businesses with multiple locations.
• Security. Cloud backup solutions typically offer robust security measures, including data encryption, access controls and backup redundancy. This can help businesses protect their data from cyber-attacks, natural disasters, and other threats.
• Automated backups. Many cloud backup solutions offer automated backups, which means that data is backed up on a regular schedule without requiring manual intervention. This can help businesses ensure that their data is always up-to-date and reduce the risk of data loss due to human error.
• Disaster recovery. Cloud backup solutions can help businesses quickly recover from data loss events, such as cyber-attacks, natural disasters, or hardware failures. With cloud backups, businesses can restore their data quickly and easily, minimising downtime and ensuring business continuity. 

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Having an annual World Backup Day acts as a reminder of the importance of having an effective, regular, and automatic backup solution in place for one of the most critical assets of a business. With so many risks and threats to business data (e.g. cyber-attacks), backing up data is crucial for business continuity and disaster recovery and, therefore, for the survival of a business. The many benefits of the cloud (as outlined above) now make it a sensible and cost-effective option for the majority of today’s businesses and organisations and using the cloud for communications, storage and backups has become normal practice for many businesses, particularly since the collaborative online working in the pandemic, and with today’s cloud-based SaaS apps like Microsoft 365.

Hopefully, World Backup Day will motivate the 30 per cent of people who say they have never backed up their data to understand the reasons for doing so, how easy it can be to set up and to decide to start doing so as soon as possible.

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