How Businesses Benefit from Cloud-to-Cloud Data Backups

In the information era, data is a foundational element of all businesses. Data is collected, stored, and analyzed allowing businesses to gain a new depth of insight into their customers. With an endless amount of possibilities to grow their business in a smarter, more agile way, this data needs to be available around the clock to ensure the operational success of the business. Historically, data backup has always been a key component of any IT strategy – whether it was stored on floppy disks, duplicate servers, or in custom built applications. With this shift to the cloud, backups shouldn’t be taken out of the strategy; rather, it should be re-thought to be more adaptable and cost-effective – the same reason you moved to the cloud in the first place. Still, many businesses are operating under the assumption that their cloud data is automatically backed up.

Here’s Why Businesses Should Invest in Cloud-to-Cloud Data Backup Solutions:

How Companies Lose Data in the Cloud

There is a common misconception that the cloud is backed up. Though cloud providers such as Microsoft Azure and AWS have disaster recovery plans for the data on their own servers, is that the only way your business will be affected by data loss? It’s more likely that an employee is going to delete something they end up needing two weeks later than all of AWS' servers going dark during a natural disaster. These applications usually aren’t the responsible party for your data loss, but they aren’t built to protect you against accidental or malicious actions either. In other words, if the data loss is your fault, you’re out of luck in most cases unless you have your own backup solution.

Data loss has serious implications for businesses. For companies that sustain data loss, statistics show that 60% will be out of business within 6 months of the disaster. And there are many avenues towards data deletion:

1. Accidental Deletion and User Mistakes

   • More often than not, data is deleted only for the user to need it later. A collaborator might accidentally delete a shared project, or you might delete a scrapped project only to later learn it is starting up again. Information can also unknowingly be overwritten or corrupted by users and third-party apps.

2. Over-Writing Data

   • SaaS applications hold large amounts of data that are constantly added to and updated. Over-writing data is a common problem that occurs when large data sets are imported into the application via bulk uploads or when integrated third party applications are used to manage the data inside the base SaaS application.

3. Malicious Actions

   • People often delete data before they quit, if they suspect they are going to be fired, or to spite a boss or coworker. Hackers can also be the culprit, surpassing security systems to delete or corrupt data. Whether internal or external, untrustworthy people are a reality. 
     

How Common Is Data Loss?

In their report entitled “SaaS Data Loss: The Problem You Didn’t Know You Had,” the Aberdeen Group cites that 32% of companies surveyed lost data from within a SaaS application. That means more than one in every three companies lose data in the cloud. In a similar report by Forrester titled, “Back Up Your Critical Cloud Data Before It’s Too Late,” it was stated that companies were steadily increasing their use of SaaS applications. The use of SaaS applications is growing but data loss within those apps is also increasing at a steady pace. Companies are investing more and more of their data in SaaS applications, and protecting those investments should be a priority. You can prevent data from causing business disruption by taking the following measures:

1. Setting robust password policies

2. Hosting SaaS application training

3. Maintaining good data management processes

4. Using automated backups with streamlined recovery and restoration

Good data management processes mean putting procedures, policies, and checklists in place specific to SaaS applications. They could focus on instances of high-volume data or when users join and leave a company. Users should be thoroughly trained in order to understand the purpose of the application and the role of data in the success of the organization. All of these measures help to minimize the instances when data is lost, however, none replace your data once it’s gone. That is why having an automated daily backup such as a SaaS solution can help businesses “set it and forget it” – and having some type of backup should be critical to your overall cloud strategy. Your information is available when you need it, allowing you to easily restore data with minimal business interruption. Learn more about backing up your SaaS data by reaching out to iCorps for a free consultation.