Physical Data Backups in the Cloud Era: Why Businesses Need Both
Physical Data Backups for Business
Physical backups still matter because they can provide rapid local recovery and, when disconnected or properly isolated, protection from ransomware and cloud-account compromise. However, local media alone is vulnerable to theft, fire, hardware failure and operational mistakes. Most businesses need both local and offsite backup, with at least one copy protected from alteration or deletion.
Reliability:
First, it’s essential to understand how the “Cloud” operates. Cloud storage services utilize physical hard drives and SSDs to store data, either in local data centers or offshore facilities. While these services typically employ redundancy and protection measures, their reliability is heavily contingent on your internet connection speed and reliability. Consequently, automatic cloud backups may sometimes be incomplete or infrequent, leaving businesses vulnerable to significant data loss. For some businesses, losing a week’s worth of data can be a major setback. Local backups offer a secondary layer of protection against data loss for instances when cloud backups are not up to date for any reason. All backups should be reviewed by proactive monitoring and regular backup recovery testing.
Cloud backup services usually work by “syncing” the data on a client machine, essentially creating an identical copy at all times. However, there are instances where a client may have accidentally deleted a file or modified it without realizing, and this false information gets backed up to the cloud. Nowadays, cloud services offer rollback or snapshot systems which can bring old copies of cloud data back from the past but with varying time frames from none to 180 or 365 days on expensive solutions. These rollbacks can save the day but the corrupted data must be identified first so it is fully rolled back and this process can be time consuming and slow. In contrast, a physical drive backup will retain multiple backup date iterations, allowing you to go back in time and retrieve the correct file.
Speed:
Cloud backups are heavily dependent on internet speed and the volume of data requiring backup. Consequently, most backup processes are scheduled overnight, and a complete full cloud backup could take days to complete and so is impractical for a daily backup scenario. In contrast, a local hard drive backup for the same amount of data can be completed in a few hours, regardless of internet connectivity and serves as a daily backup. The significance of process speed becomes even more apparent when data restoration is necessary. A qualified technician can restore data from physical backups within a few hours and execute a comprehensive disaster recovery plan to expedite business continuity. Recovery from a full cloud backup requires the downloading of the entire data from the cloud which could take days or weeks dependning on the cloud provider and the Internet connectivity of the site.
Security:
The security of cloud services varies depending on the provider. Respectable cloud backup services typically mandate features like Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) or Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). However, without these security measures, anyone with access to the credentials can potentially gain full access to your data stored in the cloud. Physical backups can be encrypted with the highest security standards, ensuring that even if someone gains physical possession of the backups, they cannot access the data without proper authorization. Most critically data sent to a cloud provider, you don’t know who can access that data no matter the promises made by the provider. A physical backup you can see and hold and control who can plug it in and access it.
Control:
There have been ongoing discussions about the privacy policies of certain cloud backup service providers and the extent of access they have to user data. It remains unclear who retains control over data backed up in the cloud, and whether data will be deleted upon user request or persist indefinitely at the discretion of the service provider. Consequently, it’s crucial to conduct thorough research when selecting a cloud service provider or seek expert advice to ensure the right choice for your business.
“Data Backup” vs. “Data Storage”:
It’s important to distinguish between data backup and data storage. Simply copying data to an external drive, cloud storage, or NAS device and then deleting it from the user’s machine to “free up space” constitutes data storage, not backup. A backup is a separate, recoverable copy of data retained so it can be restored after deletion, corruption, equipment failure or a security incident. A backup should be protected from the same event that could damage the production data. Merely moving the only copy to another device is storage or migration, not backup.
“A backup a day keeps data recovery away.”
If you have any concerns about your business’ data protection and backup situation, or if, like most businesses, you have never tested that you can actually recover in an emergency, contact us immediately and we can help you review or design a solution for your business that will protect you in all disaster scenarios.
