As a business owner, you know that data loss can be catastrophic for your organization. Not only can losing critical files halt operations, but recovering lost files can be very costly and troublesome. And because you can never tell when or how data loss will occur, it’s crucial to always have updated backups. he best way to ensure that you have the most recent copies of your data whenever you need them is by scheduling regular backups.
Here are six reasons you should make scheduled backups a priority for your Ontario business.
1. Minimize business disruptions
If your business produces a huge volume of data daily and you let this data accumulate over a period of time, then backing up becomes a long and tedious process. You may even have to make copies of your data during work hours, which can be disruptive. Backing up data to an off-site location, in particular, consumes a lot of bandwidth, which can considerably slow down your internet speeds and affect your employees’ productivity.
To minimize business disruptions, it’s best to schedule regular backups after work hours. This allows you to back up data in manageable chunks and avoid competing with other workloads for bandwidth.
2. Preserve valuable business data
Backing up after work hours is a good strategy for minimizing disruptions, but it might not suffice if you handle time-sensitive data. It’s therefore critical to schedule backups on a per-system basis: back up the most important or dynamic data more often, and back up low priority or non-time-sensitive data less frequently.
This strategy can be best maximized if you use cloud-based apps and storage platforms, as it enables you to synchronize data in real time with hardly any performance.
3. Ensure regulatory compliance
Some industries have stringent regulatory compliance requirements that businesses must meet. For example, healthcare organizations in Ontario must comply with the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004, which mandates steps for protecting patient data, while financial institutions in Canada are subject to Bill 198, which protects investors from financial frauds.
For security purposes, these regulations may necessitate businesses to keep backups of their data for a certain period of time. By scheduling backups regularly according to compliance specifications, you can guarantee the safety of your data and avoid hefty fines.
Related reading: 5 Most common PHIPA mistakes to avoid
4. Reduce employees' burden
Manually, backing up data can be time-consuming and labor-intensive. By leveraging automated solutions to schedule your backups, you take the burden of backing up data off of your employees and free them up to focus on their primary tasks.
Automating your backup process also makes it less prone to human error compared to having employees copy files from a local machine onto removable media storage. However, you will need to review your automated backup strategy periodically to make sure that it’s still working as it should.
5. Maintain visibility into your backups
Automated backup solutions give you a comprehensive view of your backups, so you always know where your data is physically stored and what kind of security measures are in place to protect it. Most backup software programs also provide logs and reports with detailed information about the status of your backups, such as how current your archives are.
With full visibility into your backups, you can guarantee that your systems are protected from cyberattacks and that the recovery process will be smooth should your primary data be compromised.
6. Gain peace of mind
Running a business is stressful enough. But by scheduling regular backups, you have one less thing to worry about. Because you know that your data is safe, you can concentrate on your operations and growing your business. And even when disaster strikes, you can rest assured that your data can be recovered without jeopardizing business continuity.
Scheduling regular backups should be an essential piece of your data protection strategy. If you want to make regular backups a priority, XBASE Technologies can help get you started. We offer a wide range of Exponentially Better™ services so you can minimize the impact of data loss and ensure that your business can recover quickly and efficiently in the event of an unexpected disaster. Contact us today.