Right from an image saved on your smartphone to a proprietary industrial design stored in the server of a corporate, all are prone to data loss. Every year millions of smartphones, laptops and even corporate computers are subjected to viruses, accidents, hardware failure and thefts, which result in data stored in those devices being compromised, unless its protected and backed up. Not only the threat is of data being lost forever, but more importantly the proprietary data can be leaked to competitors. That’s why World backup Day is celebrated on March 31 of every year, to commemorate the importance of data backup for businesses and organizations worldwide.
Global research commissioned by Arcserve revealed that most companies will suffer data loss at some point. The findings highlight why having a fast and effective data recovery plan plays an equally important role as data backup. Key findings from the research include:
• 74% of mid-sized companies have experienced data loss in the last five years
• 52% of respondents said that they could not recover all their data after a loss
• 94% say data loss had a direct impact on the way their IT teams operate
• 69% of those say they needed to revise their data recovery plans
• 23% of businesses globally do not test their data recovery plans
Arcserve recommends businesses adopt the proven 3-2-1-1 data backup strategy. The 3-2-1-1 strategy requires three backup copies of data on two different media, such as disk and tape, with 1 of those copies located offsite for disaster recovery. The final one in the 3-2-1-1 equation is immutable backup – a key element of successful ransomware protection because data is converted to a write-once, read many times format—and cannot be altered.
Here are some recommendations by industry experts for businesses on World backup Day.
Florian Malecki, Executive Vice President Marketing, Arcserve
“World Backup Day was created to help people be more aware of the significance that data plays in our everyday lives, and the importance of keeping it safe. Of course, we fully agree with this, and believe that robust and tested data recovery planning is a critical element of any data backup and protection plan.”
Mr. Ripu Bajwa, Director and General Manager, Data Protection Solutions, Dell Technologies India
“In today’s era of accelerated change and digital transformation, businesses in every sector need to do more with less. With businesses in India running workloads in a hybrid environment, it is critical to securely store data in multiple spaces like databases, file servers, and network-attached storage (NAS). While considering a solution that gives businesses the flexibility to access, upload, protect and analyze data, an asset that will have the advantage of long-term retention, reporting and insight into cloud storage use, will serve Indian organizations better.
Data use and storage have undergone dynamic changes. According to the Dell Technologies APEX Backup Services study, 65% of IT decision-makers lack confidence that they will recover all systems or data to meet SLOs following a data loss. An as-a-Service model can be a redefining solution for businesses across where an enterprise solution provider manages their data needs while they focus on business growth. 25% of IT decision-makers indicate that database or data management workloads are a good fit for the as-a-Service model.
As a global leader in data protection solutions, Dell Technologies’ enterprise backup solutions can protect everything from laptops and other edge devices to the largest enterprise data centre, along with data and applications residing in on-premises infrastructure, and virtualized environments including public, private and hybrid clouds. With many options for backup storage, backup software, integrated appliances and data protection and recovery solutions, Dell Technologies makes it easy to implement powerful tools for backup, recovery, data archiving and data replication that can help to protect business-critical data, improve uptime and ensure data availability. Dell Technologies’ new SaaS-based Apex Backup Services offers end-to-end scalable, secure data protection with centralised monitoring and management for SaaS applications, endpoints and hybrid workloads.
This World Backup Day should be a welcome opportunity for businesses to reconsider their storage solutions and upgrade to safer cloud environments secured by cutting-edge data protection amenities, which will support their digital transformation journey.”
Kumar Vembu, CEO and Founder of Gofrugal
“Data is the new oil, said a sane soul. The only difference is that oil would run out in a few years. Data, on the other hand, keeps getting accumulated exponentially. With more than 50% of the world’s population using smart-phones and digital devices, with new ones adding day by day, there are massive amounts of data created.
We walk, talk, eat, drink and breathe data. We are constantly leaving behind digital footprints. More so, when we engage with online platforms and are engrossed with digital channels. What most of us fail to notice, far less comprehend, is the lurking dangers and sneaking threats that we invite unintentionally. We hardly realise the growing platforms using AI + data to understand our choices and apprehend our preferences, and use our own personal information to create personalised experiences.
It’s time we all woke up to the realities and compulsions of data protection at large. It’s not just about data backup and restore methods, but it’s also about freeing businesses from digital slavery. It is the capacity to decide what data should be stored, how it should be used or not used, and to make sure it doesn’t make us enslaved by hardware and enchained by software.
It’s not just individuals who are unaware and unprotected. Over, 90% of small and medium size retail and distribution businesses are not aware of the impact of data protection. According to a global survey by a cybersecurity firm, 57% of organisations suffered unexpected downtime last year because of data loss. The findings also revealed that while 91% of individuals backup data and devices, 68% still lose data because of hardware or software failures, out-of-date backup, power fluctuations, theft or accidental deletion. The backup methods are not regular and sometimes even a day’s or week’s day is lost because of manual methods.
This World Backup day, businesses need to understand and commit to the importance of data backup and enjoying freedom of sharing data in a secure environment. It is high time the world moves from celebrating backup day to daily backup!”
Sandeep Bhambure, Vice President, Veeam Software – India & SAARC
“It is evident that the dependency of businesses on data, and the amount of data generated by them is consistently growing. This is creating new challenges for organisations of all sizes, making them even more vulnerable to cyberattacks. According to Veeam Data Protection Report 2022, 84% of Indian organizations suffered ransomware attacks, making cyber-attacks one of the single biggest causes of downtime for the second consecutive year. The report also found that Indian organizations were unable to recover 36% of their lost data on average and 90% of organizations were unable to recover at least some of the data they had lost. Hence, it is essential that businesses have a comprehensive data backup plan in place to be fully prepared at the time of a data breach. That’s not all! Only backing up may not protect your data from ransomware – it is equally important to ensure that the backup is well protected and securely stored. Organizations need to ensure their data protection capabilities keep pace with the demands of their business, to close the gap between how much data they can afford to lose after an outage versus how frequently data is backed up.
The good news is that we’re seeing CXOs acknowledge the urgent need for Modern Data Protection. And investing in such technologies goes beyond providing peace of mind, ensuring business continuity and maintaining customer confidence.”
