If all of your information is contained only in one physical place or has not been backed up appropriately, you are putting your entire business at risk. Network backup is essential to ensure the security of your business and all of its assets. While there are many ways which one can back up their business information, the important part is that you store your information and data in a way where it cannot be lost and you can maintain business as usual.
What is network backup?
Network backup is a system where the elected data from your backups clients (a single computer, or a network of computers), is transmitted through a network (aka internet) and sent to your backup server. This server can be privately owned and managed, or publicly hosted with a cloud backup provider — as is often the case for most small businesses.
Advanced network backup systems can also manage backup media that are linked to the backup server over the network. This type of advanced setup is especially useful for businesses using NAS (network attached storage) devices for shared data.
The importance of network backup
There are multiple reasons to adopt network backup for your business. Managing backups for multiple computers and network attached devices can be a chore when you’re using physical storage devices, tape drives, or are manually backing up each device separately. Here are just a few of the efficient, time saving, error reducing benefits to introducing a network backup solution:
- Reduces human error – If your company’s data resides in multiple computers, network backup is essential. Remembering to schedule backups for multiple computers makes your business prone to error. It’s easy to accidentally skip a day, or a week, and then before you know it — you’ve lost a file forever.
- Makes storage more scalable and manageable – Because the data is sent to one, secure location, network backup is more manageable and scalable than attaching tape drives to each computer system. With network backup, data is sent to one, secure location making it easy to add new computer systems to the network as your business expands.
- Automates your backups – By introducing network backup, you’re simplifying your backup processes. If you choose a public backup provider to manage your backups, your backup software will automatically backup all of the devices included in your network — from selected computers and laptops to the shared data on your NAS devices.
- Improves your disaster recovery abilities – Having a detailed disaster recovery plan includes using network backup. If everything you have, all of your clients’ and business’ information, was saved locally inside an external hard drive or without any backup at all, even a small error would be devastating for your small business. Not only is it smart, but it’s incredibly easy to set up network backup for every device you and your employees use.
Choosing your backup server: Public vs Private
One of the best things about network storage is that you can send all of your data to a local server or an off-site server via the Internet without the mess, risks and complications of physical storage devices. But before you can reap the benefits of network backup, you’ll need to decide whether you want to backup to your own private server or a public cloud.
One of the biggest misconceptions business owners make when distinguishing between private versus public cloud backup is data security. Even with the security features many third-party cloud backup providers offer, many small business owners still hold the belief that backing their data up to a private server offers more security features. While companies with private servers are in complete control of those servers, this does not equate to safety. Moreover, just because a third-party provider offers “public” backup, does not mean that your data can be publicly viewed or accessed. You can read more about the differences between public vs cloud storage here.
Reliable, trusted third-party cloud backup providers often have even more security features and safeguards than privately owned servers because they often have more resources, support and expertise to do so.
Running a private server setup can be costly. Not only do you have to hire a dedicated IT staff to manage your servers, you also have to foot the bill for upgrades as your business expands.
By opting instead for public cloud storage, you’ll get the scalability and security you need without the headaches and costly management fees associated with managing your own private, in-house servers.
Nordic Backup, an industry leading public cloud service provider offers small business with the security features they need and the ability to expand as their storage needs grow. Here are just some of the security features they offer, and the ones you should look for in any public cloud backup provider you consider trusting with your business data:
- End-to-end encryption so that your data can’t be read or compromised, even during transit to the cloud
- Choice of 256-bit encryption, AES encryption, Twofish, or Triple DES encryption — all commonly used by militaries, governments, financial institutions and other trusted internet service providers worldwide
- Data centers backed by multiple levels of access control (alarms, armed guards, video surveillance, etc)
- Data centers outfitted with uninterruptible power supplies, redundant cooling and multiple redundant gigabit internet connections so that your data will always be available when you need it, without downtime
- NAS and network shared backup
- Annual SSAE 16 Type 2 audit of its data centers
- Redundant server storage for your data
Public cloud backup provides businesses with the features they need to keep their data safe and secure without the excess costs associated with private hosting.
Try Nordic Backup free for 30 days and see just how easy it is to backup your data with public network backup.
