Other than storing data in local, physical medium; it is also a good idea for companies to choose alternate locations, including online backup services. There are things that we should consider before choosing such company.
- Offsite data storage: An offsite data storage in a protected place is preferable. An online backup service may only keep their client data in-house or worse in a basement. This could cause a variety of problems in the long run.
- Easy setup: There’s no use of choosing an online backup system if it requires us to become a full IT expert, even if we are one. Our chosen solutions should be quite easy to set up. Things should be configured properly, even if clients lack the proper knowledge on online backup procedures.
- Automatic features: It is important that our automatic solutions are able to look after themselves. Even in the middle of the night during a holiday season, the system should be able to handle issues, such as peak load. Backup should be performed automatically. In this case, we should choose a backup service that performs backup based on rigid schedules. Some reliable backup services may even perform daily backup for highly sensitive data that change dynamically.
- 24 x 365 services: A backup solution should be available every day, every hour and every minute. It shouldn’t be available only during office hours. Maximum availability is essential for many companies that need to handle so much sensitive data.
- Simple restore procedures: If problems and disasters affect our company, we should be able to quickly restore data from backups. The procedure should be easy and simple to do. Running a business is difficult enough and there shouldn’t be an added pain of having to get our data back online.
- User monitoring: Although the online service company should constantly monitor the condition of the backups, clients should also be allowed to perform their own monitoring. This will give clients a peace of mind, seeing that their backups are being safely and properly handled. Clients will have a real faith on the service.
- Excellent compatibility: Online backup services should offer excellent compatibility to common platforms, including Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, Android and popular distributions of Linux. There should also be compatibility to more obscure operating systems, even legacy ones, like Symbian and Windows 2000. This makes sure that users are able to recover their data, regardless of what platforms they are using. Wide compatibility also ensures that backups can integrate better regardless of what database products and software applications being used. As an example, essential email messages and their attachments should be recoverable using MS Exchange. This will eliminate considerable amounts of work. Before choosing an online backup service, it is important that there’s a proper level of integration and compatibility. This will ensure that recovery can be performed very easily. All critical data, folders and files should be recovered much more easily. We should also bear in mind of any possible future requirements.