Steve Bigelow: backing up your essential data is vital
for any business. But just backing up isn't
enough. What if a natural disaster hits your
company's data center? That's where a good cloud
backup can save the day. Cloud Backup is the
process of sending copies of system, database
media, or other important files to another
physical offsite location. It uses a backup server
and data storage systems, which are typically
hosted by a third party, cloud or SaaS provider.
So how does cloud backup work? It starts with an
organization's data center where a backup
application copies data, and stores it on
different media or on another storage system. But
after that, there are different approaches to
getting it to the cloud. An organization can
backup directly either to a public cloud or a
service provider, there's CDC backup, or cloud to
cloud a relatively new process. It's just like the
name sounds, data from one cloud is copied to
another cloud, or a hardware alternative. This is
an all in one online cloud backup system. That
includes backup software, disk capacity, and
backup server. It's about as close to plug and
play as cloud backup gets. Most of these systems
have a seamless link to cloud backup services or
cloud providers. That means these appliances
typically retain the most recent backup locally
while copying to the cloud. There are definite
benefits to cloud backup. They include cost
savings, scalability, management, security,
resilience, and accessibility. Let's break these
down a little bit. First, cost savings. It's
generally cheaper to backup data to a cloud backup
service than to build and maintain an in house
backup operation. Second, scalability. Cloud
Scalability means the cloud can grow as the data
in the backup grows. But beware, as too much
dormant or non essential data can escalate your
costs, then management, the cloud backup service
provider takes care of many management tasks
required to backup and restore data, then there's
a security benefit. For instance, cloud backups
are more secure against ransomware attacks,
because backups occur outside the office network.
Also, backup data is typically encrypted before
it's transmitted from the customer's site to the
backup service, and data usually remains encrypted
while it's stored in the cloud. Cloud Backup is
also resilient and redundant. Common data backup
problems that occur on site can include improper
storage, physical media damage, and accidental
overwrites to name a few. But an off site cloud
backup can save the day if any of these problems
occur in a local data center. Finally, data backed
up to the cloud is accessible from anywhere, which
is as we know now essential in this age of
increased remote work. But you need to be aware of
potential disadvantages that come with cloud
backup. Three important disadvantages concerns
speed, escalating cost, and control. Backup speed
depends on bandwidth and latency. For
organizations using their internet connection, the
backup may be slow, that's bothersome, but it's an
even bigger headache when recovering data from the
service. A slow recovery of essential data can
cripple business operations. Another disadvantage
is that cloud costs can escalate as the backup
data set grows. That's because businesses pay for
backup storage, and those monthly or annual
storage charges will accumulate over time. A third
disadvantage is that once data is moved outside an
organization's physical location, it's in the
control of the cloud provider or outside SAS
provider, not your organization. If the provider
suffers a disaster goes out of business or is
hacked, your organization sensitive backup data
could be exposed or become unavailable entirely.
To maximize the advantages of cloud backup and
minimize the disadvantages, here are some best
practices. First, study and understand the cloud
backup providers service level agreement. The SLA
and SLA will tell you how the data is backed up
and protected, where vendor offices are located,
how to obtain and escalate support requests, and
how costs might accumulate over time. It's also
your key to understanding where the service
providers responsibilities end also do not rely on
any one method or data storage medium for your
backup. Try to use the three two one In backup
methodology, make three copies of the data. Store
them on two different types of media, and keep one
copy off site. regularly review your
organization's backup strategies and data recovery
checklists, validate backups and periodically test
your recovery processes. Your organization, staff
and technologies must be prepared to recover
quickly and effectively if the worst happens.
Along similar lines, be sure your administrators
routinely monitor cloud backups, they need to be
sure processes are working and data is
uncorrupted. prioritize what data or files are
included in a backup, depending on how critical
they are to business operations. Storing unused or
non essential data can unnecessarily increase your
backup time and storage spending. If you need to
retain data, but it's not in active use, consider
archiving it. archival data storage tends to be
less expensive than backup storage. Please, please
take care with your metadata. If it's applied
properly, you'll save time if you need to quickly
locate and restore specific files. Keep in mind
some data has special needs, and not every cloud
backup provider can meet them. If your company
must comply with particular regulations like HIPAA
and GDPR. Be sure your cloud backup service is
certified as compliant with those regulations. At
the end of the day, your company not the cloud
backup provider is responsible for storing your
data according to regulatory requirements. And
finally, if you're going to backup extremely
confidential data to the cloud, use a strong form
of encryption. Cybersecurity is always a serious
matter. We can sum up three main security
considerations with the acronym CIA,
confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
Let's look at CIA from a cloud backup perspective.
When it comes to confidentiality with cloud
backup, it's key to remember that most data on its
way to the cloud moves across the public Internet.
So many cloud backup providers encrypt data
throughout the process, including at the starting
location during transit. And at rest in the cloud
backup providers data center. Either the user or
the provider will hold an encryption key so that
no one authorized user can access the data. Most
users prefer to hold the encryption key, and the
provider you choose should offer that option. When
it comes to integrity. With cloud backup. It's up
to the user to determine whether the data is the
same when it's read back or whether it's become
corrupted. Object Storage can help with that. It's
a form of validation with built in integrity
checks that are typically conducted as the backup
is created. And finally, availability. For cloud
backup, the focus is on the data restoration
process. Unfortunately, this is the part often
overlooked by users. It's important to remember
that cloud providers do experience service
disruptions that can last anywhere from minutes to
hours. So when looking at cloud backup providers
potential users should verify that the providers
uptime or availability is adequate for your
organization's needs. Now that you know the basic
ins and outs of cloud backup, you're better
prepared to assess potential service providers in
terms of how they operate, and whether or not they
can meet your organization's needs. Once you've
determined which providers are best suited to your
organization's needs, cost will certainly play a
decisive factor. providers typically charge or
recurring fee for backup services. That fee might
be based on storage space or capacity, and data
transmission bandwidth. Costs can also be affected
by the number of users or servers involved, or how
often data is retrieved. Keep an eye out for
hidden costs, too. Although most products for
cloud backup are priced based on a gigabyte per
month model. Providers may also use a sliding
scale model, set usage minimums and add
transaction costs. So always examine the SLAs. As
I mentioned earlier, that's a key to understanding
how the provider will deal with your data from
start to finish and back again during data
recovery.