Once upon a time in a little coastal town, local business owners Mike and Daniella struggle day and night to manage their internal IT systems. Both businesses have just experienced sudden growth, and while the additional revenue has helped them in many ways, both have found that their IT processes just aren’t prepared for that volume of calls and activity on their servers—and both are having a hard time remembering to run backups on their systems regularly.
After losing an important file, Daniella decides it’s not worth the risk and hires an outside IT company to handle her IT needs and ensure her business data is backed up regularly. It’s a significant expense, but for her, it’s worth the peace of mind.
Mike, on the other hand, doesn’t want to waste any of his new revenue on managed IT services if he can just keep doing it himself. He backs up important files on a jump drive every couple of weeks and counts it as money in the bank.
But then….
Disaster Strikes!
A huge hurricane begins to brew in the Gulf, and as the storm rolls in, there’s not time to secure everything inside the businesses or run any last-minute backups. Both Mike and Daniella get to safety and wait out the storm, but when they return, their businesses have been significantly damaged by the winds and rain. Both owners are able to use their insurance to repair their physical location, but their systems have also taken quite a hit—all the data in both locations has been lost. Damaged equipment and power surges have made physical recovery nearly impossible.
With Backups
Once she’s replaced her equipment and repaired her location, Daniella is ready to open for business again. Her IT company has made backups of all her files, from essential operation data to the to-do list her intern was working on the day the business closed. Her business can keep running offsite while the repairs are being made, and hit the ground running when they can move back in. Three months after the storm, Daniella’s business is doing better than ever, since many of her competitors still aren’t ready to open again yet.
Without Backups
Mike, on the other hand, is in way over his head. While his storm insurance will cover the physical repairs to his business, the data he has lost is irreplaceable. He has copies of some of the most important documents on his handy jump drive, but no record of what projects were in progress, payment statuses, or even an email list of his most reliable clients. He has to start over from scratch, and it will take him many years to recover.
Don’t be like Mike.
Data loss is serious business, and secure backups should be an essential part of your day-to-day operations. If you’re ready to hand over the management of your IT services to the experts—that’s us, LayerOne Networks! —then you can rest assured you’ll have your data when you need it, no matter what happens. In order to avoid a worse-case situation like Mike’s, contact us today and schedule your free consultation.
Click here to download our eBook on extreme weather to learn how to prepare!