You have a backup when your primary system fails. But what happens when there’s a problem with your backup?
Every company has some sensitive data or the other to store. Even when you have a strong data storage system in place, it’s crucial to have equally robust managed backup services in times when the worst happens.
This backup is the last line of defense for every company that relies on data. But what happens when your backup system fails?
If you don’t want such an adverse incident to occur, then you’ve to reinforce your backup strategy in such a way that there aren’t any loopholes. In this blog, we’ll take a look at some of the backup challenges and how you can handle them.
5 Data Backup Challenges and How to Overcome Them
Many IT consulting firms provide data backup solutions. But to make sure that you have a foolproof backup plan, you need to know all the ins and outs there’s to know about managed backup services.
Our experts at LayerOne Networks have provided Backup as a Service to many SMBs and large organizations. With their experience, we’re tapping into the backup challenges and the best ways to handle them.
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1. What to do when your backup gets corrupted?
Well, this is one scary nightmare for companies. When the backup gets corrupted, you can completely lose your entire data, especially if your primary storage has also let you down.
This generally happens due to multiple reasons: poor handling of the data, the backup has been outdated, the media stored on the backup is damaged and spoils the entire system or any other reason.
Solution: When such a thing happens, you can try to recover data and may be successful in partly recovering some data. But you may not know which data can be recovered. And sometimes, even the recovered files may not be enough to run applications.
In such cases, you can make multiple copies of the critical data and store it on different sites. You can also use smart applications to ensure the transfer of secure data.
There’s another rare case where the backup gets damaged if it’s stored in an offsite location. It’s best to go for onsite backup solutions that are much safer than offsite backup storage.
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2. What to Do When the Backup Hasn’t Been Initiated?
This is a mistake many do when they’re new to the concept of backup. This usually happens when you decide to manually backup the data whenever you need. And sometimes, when you forget to do that, you can lose important information.
Solution: Every backup service provider offers automated scheduling of the backups. So make the most of it and schedule backup to run at regular intervals. This will easily solve this problem.
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3. What to Do When Your Backup is Incomplete?
So, your main storage fails for some reason. And when you open your backup, you realize that only a part of the files is stored. So, what’s the reason for incomplete backup?
This may happen when the system got interrupted as it was uploading to the backup storage and for some reason, failed to complete. It can be due to network issues, human negligence to approve the continuation of backup or any other system issue.
Solution: To avoid such situations, enable options in your backup system to continue the transfer from the same point before the interruption. Also, when choosing the options for automatic backup, don’t be very selective and select all the necessary files you’ll need.
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4. What to Do When the Database Storage Capacity Becomes Larger?
This is one common struggle for SMBs when it comes to data backup. Backup services cost as much as space you consume and therefore, many cannot afford to back up every single one of their files. But what can we do when the backup limit is nearing and there’s a massive volume of important data that needs to be backed up?
Solution: This is when the help of managed backup solutions come in. When you outsource the backup services to an expert, the team will plan and manage your data on the backup storage efficiently. They’ll remove the data that’s outdated and backup the data that’s needed right now and help you to stay within your budget.
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5. How can you extend security to your backup storage too?
Data security is on the minds of every single company that deals with sensitive information. While you’ll be using hi-tech security features for your master database, you need to extend the same level of security for your backup storage since both contain important data.
Solution: If you’re worried about hiring another team for the security of backup storage, here’s a better solution for you. You can outsource the backup security, maintenance and monitoring to an IT consulting firm that’ll have their own team to run constant checks on your backup storage just like your central storage.
You can also combine the backup management services along with the maintenance and get an affordable deal.
If you’re looking for a good IT consulting firm offering managed backup services, then call us at 361.653.6800. Our backup and disaster recovery experts will guide you to choose the right backup strategy within your budget and stay protected.
Key Takeaways
While having a good backup system is the right thing to do, you should equally focus on maintaining this system as your main storage. Here are the top things to stay secure with your backup.
- Make multiple backups of important data.
- Schedule automated backing up of the data at regular intervals.
- Enable options to ensure smooth, complete transfer of data even when interrupted.
- Outsource to managed backup service providers to handle vast volumes of data backups at affordable rates.
- Extend a high level of security to your backed up data with managed backup solutions.