Individuals and businesses of all sizes are witnessing an explosion in the volume of data they hold. Whether it is the result of the Internet, email, or increasingly heavy and media-rich application software, there is a massive growth in the volume of data all around.

Data is increasingly being recognized as one of the real assets of a company, and losing this data would cause severe damage to any organization.

From a global perspective, the statistics are very interesting:

In 2020, IDC estimated that business transactions on the internet (which includes B2B and B2C) reached 450 billion per day.

Walmart handles more than 1 million customer transactions every hour, which is imported into several databases estimated to contain more than 2.5 Petabytes of data.

Every minute:

• Facebook users share nearly 2.5 million pieces of content.
• Twitter users tweet nearly 300,000 times.
• Instagram users post nearly 220,000 new photos.
• YouTube users upload 72 hours of new video content.
• Apple users download nearly 50,000 apps.
• Email users send over 200 million messages.
• Amazon generates over $80,000 in online sales.

Data loss can be very costly, particularly for organizations in the small and medium business (SMB) market where the difference between survival and closure can rest on the ability to recover from a disaster. At the very least, critical data loss will have a financial impact on companies of all sizes.

A disruption of key primary or support operations can cause a crisis for any business. All computer data is at risk from threat or damage. Even with the most reliable equipment and the most secure operating environment, there is always the possibility of something going wrong.

A commonly held misconception among individuals is that file sync is equal to backup. You buy a new laptop and do a file sync. That does not mean you have backed up your data. Data backup is about having a complete copy of the data.

File syncing and computer backup are two very different features. Sync allows you to sync the same files between multiple computers, syncing mirrors a folder on one computer on another. Backup on the other hand takes a copy of the file and uploads it to an external hard disc or the cloud for safe keeping.

You can get your files back at any time if you accidentally delete or lose a file by downloading from the Control Panel or restoring via the desktop application

There should be a 3-2-1 rule when all data should have three backups in two different media and one additional location. The additional location in the case of SMBs could be the cloud as they already have one backup on premise.

Need for data protection

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who have lost critical data, and those who will. In other words, if you use technology long enough and neglect to back up your data, you’re guaranteed to have at least one extremely bad day.

Whether it’s theft, loss, fire, flood, corruption, or some form of malware, a single incident can destroy the lion’s share of your family photos, personal documents, address books, years-in-the-making music library, and more.

The solution, of course, is to back up everything. With ever-increasing amounts of data to be stored, real threats of data loss, and increasing government legislation, data protection has become a high priority. It is not just large and enterprise corporations that must protect their data. Even SMBs need to evolve a data protection strategy that is commensurate with their needs and budget. Having a data backup plan is akin to having a insurance policy. You need it for any eventuality.

According to PCWorld magazine, few years ago, the terms “disaster recovery” and “data protection” were synonymous with large budgets and an army of IT personnel to manage the process. Cost is relative, though. Paying a monthly or annual fee for an online backup service seems more expensive than just burning a DVD at face value, but it's all worth it when the office is destroyed by an accident or natural calamity and the DVDs are scratched and cracked in half, and you can just set up a new computer somewhere else and restore your data from the Web.

Today’s business environment of low cost disks, robust software, and high-performance tape drives enables companies of all sizes to proactively protect themselves from data loss and its threats to the business.

Backup imperative for SMBs

For many small businesses, though, their backup and storage strategy hasn't caught up with their more pervasive use of computers. This could be due to confusion about the various storage options, or a failure to understand that the old paradigm of the occasional batch backup is no longer adequate.

Storing your backup copies on premise provides for fast recovery. However, having only one copy of backup on premise does bear the risk of being damaged in case of any eventuality. The cloud offers a perfect location for the additional backup for these businesses. Further, growing acceptance of the bring your own device (BYOD) trend and increasing maturity of cloud services has opened the door for businesses to store data online.

Businesses & individuals need to make their data protection requirements a part of the strategic plan for IT. 

Backup and Disaster Recovery planning, implementation, and regular recovery testing are essential to the survival of the business. The ideal solution will provide an integrated suite of products that deliver unified control, management, and reporting for your entire environment regardless of the size of your organization, the number of data types, the number and types of operating system platforms and applications.