We mentioned cloud computing a few weeks back but provided a word of caution about the potential ramifications of entrusting your data to a large third party with advertising interests, like Google and Amazon. Having your data stored in a remote location, however, is virtually an essential for your business. Storing information in multiple places has always been the best of fail-safes when it comes to technology, and nothing has changed there.
By storing your data with your IT support company, you can gain further advantages than if you’d stored it yourself. For one thing, you have one more copy of your documents out in the world to provide a back up if you should ever need one. Since those documents are virtually in the hands of your IT support company, they know how to restore them and will be able to do so easily once they’ve fixed your more immediate issue.
Secondly, your IT support company has a vested interest in keeping your data safe. If their servers crash or experience downtime, they’ll lose your business and likely that of many other clients as well. Most IT companies (us included) store data in heavily protected buildings at a distance from our own premises for improved security.
Buildings full of servers and data centres have guards round the clock, barbed wire protection, and consistently maintained temperature levels to ensure the highest levels of functionality. Most businesses can’t support that kind of environment for their own servers and often remote back up services are actually cheaper than purchasing a back up server of your own.
The best part is that after taking a full back up initially, your data will automatically be refreshed and updated to match your current needs. You’ll be able to recover anything from the last sixty days should the worst happen and you lose your own business files. While a larger, commercial cloud computing company can provide a similar service, your IT support company is not likely to sell information about you for profit and you can even stipulate this in the terms of your contract. You’ll be getting all of the benefits and none of the risks.
If you’ve ever considered remotely backing up all of your data, look no further than your own IT support company. If you don’t have one, you can still request this as your only service. It’s well worth having the peace of mind that a reliably installed and supported remote back up solution will get you.
