Are you new to IT? Or do you want a deeper knowledge of backup and disaster recovery? Firstly, you should know that these two terms are not the same. There are some strategies involved in making these two and it is important that you know the distinguishing differences. As Hashan Kodituwakku – a guru in his IT business would say, businesses don’t plan on having minor or major technical outages. However, having the essential knowledge about backup and disaster recovery would help reduce the effects of such outages.
Technical outages could be caused by human error, cyber attacks, viruses, or natural disasters. The aftermath is sometimes sudden and it can affect sales, worker’s performance, profit, and even cause data loss. This article will give a full insight into both backup and disaster recovery.
What is Backup all about?
Backup isn’t complicated as some IT people make it sound. It’s all about having extra copies or files of a particular data or multiple data. In other words, you have extra copies of file A securely stored in another external device or better still on cloud storage. Choosing where to backup your data is totally up to you but it is advised to choose the best. Hashan Kodituwakku gives ideal suggestions on how to choose the best backup device.
Why do I have to back up my data?
Yes, your desktop or laptop may be expensive and even have a larger capacity to store files. But have you stopped to ask yourself why these gadget makers have been introducing the cloud storage medium? The cloud is there for you to backup all your data just in case you lose your gadget. Backup is needed for:
- Quick recovery in case you lose your data by virus or deletion
- Data protection
- Access your data anywhere. You can access your data from anywhere if you can access your cloud storage. Or possibly if you have it secure in an external storage device such as microchips.
What is disaster recovery?
Hashan Kodituwakku defines disaster recovery as a quick standard go-to access before reaching your basic backup device. After a technical outage, the first establishment or process you run to access your data or IT reservoir is known as disaster recovery.
How is it done?
Just like backup, an external device is needed for continuous functionality only that in this case, the external device provides quick access to data and IT reservoir before reaching your main data. It is what is needed before you can reach your sole backed-up data. Before your principal data is accessed, you will require it to stay functional making use of unused servers and storage mediums.
Now that you know the differences between the two IT recovery methods, you now have the knowledge on how to run your business technically. Many people have asked Hashan Kodituwakku if keeping copies of their business data means they can function all through with no problem? Well, yes and no. If it is very much possible for that to happen, disaster recovery wouldn’t have been implemented as a major IT solution to a sudden technical outage.
In addition, whether the business you run is small or big, you cannot engage in backup and disaster recovery. After a terrible situation hits your business resulting in loss of data, what happens if your data isn’t backed up. Another way to look at this, what if you backed up your data but you have no knowledge about disaster recovery? Delay in getting your business back on track might cost you loss of employees or even worse, customers.