The right backup strategy for your company

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loss of data, whether customer, employee or supplier-related, can cause lasting and profound damage to business processes. It is therefore essential to define a suitable data backup concept and the best possible backup strategy for your company at an early stage and implement it regularly. As the person responsible for IT and especially as the managing director, storage management is in your hands. In the following, we will not only tell you everything you need to know to develop a suitable backup concept, but also refer you to a suitable data backup concept template (and give you a data backup concept example, PDF file, link below).

The path to a suitable backup strategy

If you want to implement a new backup strategy in your company, you first need to answer a few questions. It is necessary to clarify which data should be stored for how long and how much data loss would still be acceptable. You therefore start by taking stock and sorting your inventories according to relevance. It must also be clear what financial and legal consequences could arise in the worst case and which storage media are most suitable for data backup. The decision depends above all on the security classification of the data used and to be backed up.

When selecting suitable storage technology, you should consider how long the information is to be retained, the importance of visual readability or whether the data is to be reproduced in another way, how transportable the data carrier is and how much space it requires. It must also be clarified how sensitive the medium is to external influences and which storage logic it follows. In other words, is it file system or database-based and how often can data be recorded and at what storage capacity? Of course, the price of the data carrier is also decisive.

The potential costs in the event of loss must be weighed up against those that would be incurred for the backup concept as such and the storage of the storage media. A suitable, secure location must be selected and determined for this purpose.

A cost-benefit calculation is recommended in advance in any case. You should observe the following rule of thumb: Data and information of high value should be backed up on particularly secure and therefore usually more expensive storage media, while less important data can be stored on averagely secure and therefore less expensive media. In addition, it should be determined when and how often the data concerned must be available and how long access to the information may be denied at most, depending on the frequency of use of the data.

The data backup strategy must also be clearly defined with regard to the type of backup: should the data backup be a full backup, incremental or differential? In this context, how often should the functionality of the backup media and the integrity and consistency of the data be checked? A responsible person or several responsible employees must be carefully selected and appointed to implement the agreed processes. It is also their task to keep themselves informed of applicable legal regulations, as the backup strategy must comply with them.

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in the absence of a backup strategy

Many dangers can threaten company-related data. In the event of a system crash, sabotage, hacker attacks, virus or worm attacks, all data stored on the computer may be lost. Damaging environmental influences such as lightning strikes, fire or flooding can also cause extensive loss of information. In order to protect yourself from being unable to act as a result of such a loss, it is absolutely necessary to make backups of the data worth protecting at regular intervals, which are stored separately from the original information and protected as well as possible from the aforementioned influences. A threat analysis can clarify in advance which data is particularly at risk and which damage is most likely to occur. In this way, data security can be increased in advance, for example with the help of encryption programs or firewall installations.

Storage management and the definition of a suitable backup strategy for one's own company has become a decisive criterion for the success of a company. A company that has to shut down or restrict its operations due to extensive data loss, even if only temporarily, may lose the trust of its customers, suppliers and employees as well as its competitive position, not to mention the financial losses that such a loss entails.

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the backup strategy in a backup concept

Once you have answered all these questions with regard to the existing circumstances in your company, weighed up the alternatives against each other and the costs against the benefits, it is important to record the formulated strategy in a backup concept.

Depending on the maximum downtimes you agree on, the financial resources that can be used and how many data changes are to be made and at what intervals, you decide on either the full backup, differential or incremental backup method.

While the full backup always backs up the entire system, i.e. all data, current software versions and the operating system in its current state, the differential and incremental methods only record changes in the meantime. If you back up using a differential backup, the change is saved in relation to the last full backup, whereby all memory states made since the last full backup are also transferred. If an incremental backup is used, each save status is saved separately until the next full backup.

Langmeier Backup: a solution for every company

Are you looking for suitable backup solutions for your company? Langmeier Software offers various backup solutions tailored to your needs. Back up your data quickly and easily to a secure external hard disk and use the software offered by Langmeier for RAID data backup, the creation of an EDP backup copy or a Microsoft backup. To ensure long-term success, Langmeier always finds a suitable backup solution for small businesses, medium-sized companies or even large corporations.