Backup, Backup, Backup. How valuable is your business data

OK. We’ve talked about backups this MANY times before. So:  What is your backup strategy?

Do you have house insurance? Car insurance? Life insurance?

What’s your “insurance policy” on your business data? The risk management strategy you employ could mean the difference between staying in business and having to close the doors. Literally!

Imagine ……

You’ve been toiling away at your business for the last 6 years, entering all that valuable data into your Autosoft system. You’ve even been backing up EVERY DAY. You think that everything is just fine.

… until ….

Lightning strikes! In the form of a killer virus. One that even gets past the security you’ve implemented by way of the latest and greatest anti-virus systems (and you’ve kept it up to date).

No problem. I have my backup. I’ll be OK.

Not this time! You’ve been backing up to an external hard drive that is plugged into the server via a USB cable. You never take it out. Because the drive is connected, the virus has got to this drive as well.

OK. So I’ll send the drive to one of those high-tech places that can get data from a mangled, burt or busted drive, surely they’ll be able to resurrect my data.

A few days and a few hundred dollars later, you get the phone call that the drive is unrecoverable. Not getting ANYTHING off this drive.

Does this sound far-fetched? A fantasy story? 

This exact scenario happened to one our of clients just recently.

We “found” a backup that they copied to a CD more than 2 years ago that we were able to restore, so at least we got some of their data back, but:

• they’ve still lost 2 years of transactions
• don’t know who owes them what
• have no up to date service history, so they can no longer do meaningful service campaigns.
• Have no idea of the profitability of their business.
• The list could go on…