With all the recent talk about cybersecurity and how the pandemic has affected the capacity of businesses to protect themselves against attacks, one thing has been made very clear: backups are not only important, but they are also essential.

While cryptolocker attacks become more and more common, backups are often the only recourse to recover your data. And whether your backup strategy is on-premise or in the cloud, it is vital for your company to consider how you would restore your data in case of a loss.

Cloud backups have many advantages, one of which is constant access from anywhere and data assurance, your data being of course backed up remotely. On top of that, redundancy can bring you more peace of mind, allowing your data to be spread across multiple servers in the event of a failure. Security is another benefit, everything being encrypted with strict security protocols. Besides, avoiding a capital expenditure by moving your existing and new backups to the cloud will turn your capex into a more predictable operating expense, making budgeting easier. 

Automated Backups

Automated backups mean more peace of mind for your IT team. No more forgotten schedules, no more disrupting the users every single day to back up data. Cloud backups are largely automated, freeing your employees to focus on more important tasks, and ensuring your data is secure and properly backed up according to the best industry guidelines. This is actually one of the main differences between simple cloud storage and cloud backup: with cloud storage, files to store in the cloud must be manually selected, while cloud backup automatically syncs and saves your files.

As we all know, downtime may well be the difference between losing a weeks worth of work because your users can’t access key files, and simply apologizing for a less than an hour delay. The recovery process is testable and known in advance, which means no more running around trying to gather physical copies of your data. Downtime is the plague of every business, and during stressful moments like a loss of data, cloud backups can help your productivity in a huge way.

Despite all of these advantages, a very small amount of enterprises have a data backup protocol in place. Many see the cost as a deterrent, but the truth is these costs are quickly offset by the many benefits of cloud computing, among which the possibility of making your data grow with you, enable you to scale up and down at will, leaving you free to worry about the core of your business instead of storage solutions.

Azure Backup is a cost effective and secure centralized one-click solution that can be scaled to your backup storage needs. Backing up Azure VM, SQL or SAP HANA workloads, as well as on-prem VMware machines is possible with no additional infrastructure costs, and it is possible to instantly restore your assets (individual files, folders, databases) with no downtime.

With more certifications than any other cloud provider, Azure is a trustworthy solution against the ever increasing threats businesses face nowadays. It is also a solution we have implemented for many of our clients and they are happy with it.

It’s a matter of when, not if, a ransomware attack will strike your business.

To conclude, with the rise of cybersecurity concerns, it is now more than ever important to discuss data recovery strategies with your IT specialists. Business continuity should be a concern if you haven’t already found a solution to tackle these threats.  Most specialists say it’s a matter of when, not if, a ransomware attack will strike your business. With data losses averaging a $3.9M cost per attack, and 96% of businesses having encountered an outage in the last three years, a cloud backup strategy will help you protect your data, your customers and your business thanks to these five simple points:

• Zero infrastructure investment
• Automatic backup routines (set it and forget it!)
• Reduced downtime in the event of data loss
• Tiered cost value
• Better reliability (and less headaches) than physical backups

As a Microsoft Gold partner, you can reach one of our experts at 1-866-426-2748 to discuss the best backup strategy for your needs and budget.