Where to Back Up Now – Locally or in the Cloud?

Data is the lifeline of your organization. You, as an IT system administrator, know this perfectly well through the daily trials and tribulations babysitting your IT systems, through the pain and suffering of getting things back up and running when they go down. Because of this you know that backing up everything you manage is essential – and maybe you even learned this hard way.

So, what do you do?

First, you select a complete and reliable backup solution, and provision it in your environment. However, when you get to the settings of your backup policy, you are stumped by the simple question: “Where do you want to back up to?”

“Hold on. Where do I want to back up?” you ask yourself. The software gives you multiple options – disk, network, cloud, tape – but which one is the best?

Well, it can be tricky – as there is no absolute best option. For example:

• Disk gives you speed, but it’s located in the same server, so it won’t protect you if the server fails.
• Local network storage protects you from single server failure, but what about floods, fires or storms that destroy an entire data center?
• Tape can be taken far away from the disaster, but it’s slow and cumbersome.
• Cloud is one of the best options – yet your company’s internet connection plays a role.

The best approach to protect your organization’s valuable data is to use a combination of storage devices. At Acronis, we prescibe the 3-2-1 rule of backup:

      3. Store your data in 3 locations – Production, Local Backup, Offsite Backup

      2. Back up your data to 2 types of media – Disk and Cloud are the most popular

      1. Put 1 copy of your data off-site – using Cloud backup (or Tape, if Cloud is not for you)

With the 3-2-1 rule of backup, you can restore files and single systems quickly from local on-premise storage, and restore entire infrastructure from an off-site copy in case of major issues, power outages or disasters.

This approach will also help you to devise your backup strategy faster, giving more options to the business to continue its operations no matter what happens.

Stay safe and and keep your data protected with the 3-2-1 rule of backup.

To learn more, check out this video that describes the 3-2-1 rule in more detail, and how it helps you to protect your business.