For an organization, understanding the importance of a formalized backup procedure is very important. 

With tons of historic data and the accumulation of the latest information with every passing day, it’s critical to keep a proper backup. Otherwise, the natural and other risks linked to local backup can threaten critical information. 

In this article, we will discuss how an effective plan to recover from data disasters can help protect your business data against various threats. 

What is a Disaster Recovery Plan?

The Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) is a formal document that includes information about how the organization responds to a range of threats, such as cyber-attacks, data loss, server failure, and so on.

Purpose of the Backup Procedure

The purpose of the backup procedure is to ensure that there is a consistent and reliable method to restore your data. It emphasizes the importance of data and system backups and defines the procedures for performing and validating backups. 

What Should be Included in a Backup Procedure?

The backup procedure includes activities that ensure that data is backed up in secure storage media.

The backup procedure should also include recovery point objectives (RPO) and metrics that determine how long the data should be stored before it needs to be backed up again. 

What is a Recovery Point Objective?

Recovery Point Objective (RPO) describes how much data is lost in the event of a major incident, is tolerable. This is an important thing to consider, as it dictates how often you have to back up and how often you have to send the backups offsite.

Don’t forget to get world-class backup features from a specialized third-party. With the risks associated with natural and physical disasters and ransomware, maintaining local backups should not be the only facet of your strategy. 

Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

Recovery Time Objective (RTO) reduces the risk of not being able to back up to network-based storage devices without using expensive backup media servers.

If it becomes clear that your business cannot survive even if the line is forced for several days. You should quickly implement a program that is necessary for backup and recovery. If you are not willing to alleviate data loss or disruption, you cannot use backup services free of charge, but more professional services.

In addition to the development and testing of backup and restore procedures, Microsoft Technet has also published tips for testing backup and restore procedures. Implement an emergency recovery plan that includes backup, restore, and offline maintenance of backup devices. This idea includes the importance of keeping all your systems under one roof so that they work without the downtime and provide you with the same level of security and reliability as other systems in your organization, such as computers, servers, printers, etc.

Why Backup and Recovery are Important?

The purpose of data backup is to store a copy of your business data to recover in times of crisis.

Usually, data is backed up in one of the two ways:

• Local server: data is stored in the servers on location.
• Cloud Storage: data is stored in a cloud such as Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS), etc. 

Cloud servers are a much sensible idea because cloud storage services are:

• Scalable: with cloud, you don’t need to buy the equipment beforehand. Rather, you can just buy more storage when required. 
• Cost-efficient: most cloud service providers provide a pay-as-you-go structure. You pay for the services you acquire. 
• Maintenance: local servers require regular maintenance. You need to keep the staff handy to resolve any issues and make sure that the servers are working fine. 

Data Backup Policy

Every organization needs a data backup procedure. The document outlines exactly what is backed up and how often the data should be backed up. It clearly sets a single backup procedure and may include things like: 

• Back-up to the cloud procedure
• Backup to another device
• Backup and restore

The backup and restore procedure ensures that all recovery steps are well-documented. Performing the procedure (all steps) to assure that they work beforehand is the key to a good backup strategy.

Regardless of the backup architecture you use, establishing a well-defined backup is essential to ensure consistent protection of your business data. Your backup procedures depend on a variety of factors, such as the size and type of data, the number of devices, and the type of backups. All these are important aspects to consider when choosing the right backup methods for every need.

In the event of a disaster, data recovery strategy is the difference between survival and closure. A disaster can lead to the loss of data, not to mention the cost of recovery. If the backed up data is needed in a recovery situation, it should not be stored in the same place as the original data. Otherwise, the backup can also be affected leaving you in a worse situation than ever. 

Data backups should be stored in various geographical locations. If something happens to the servers in Boston then you can recover data from the servers in Singapore. In the case where both the original data and the backup were stored in the same location, the disaster might have affected both locations. 

How to Backup Data in Your Organization?

The price you have to pay for data backup is that on Wednesday you only have to back up the data that has changed. If you change the data on Tuesday, the difference will consume more backup resources, so you need a differential backup that takes place on Wednesday. 

However, if you need to restore a file lost on Thursday, you will either need to make a full backup on Sunday or make incremental backups on Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and then make full backups again on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. 

On Wednesday, you only need to back up the modified data and not the original data, and you do not need to back it up on Monday or Tuesday.

Importance of a Formalized Backup Procedure: Conclusion

If you don’t have a formalized backup procedure for your company yet, make sure to change that. You don’t want to wind up in a situation with no backup and recovery options. It’s not just an IT failure anymore, but rather a business failure. 

Update your backup strategy to fit your business requirements. Formalize the strategy in the dedicated backup procedure, and share it with all your employees in charge of backups.