Data Protection: No Backup Means No Recovery

Data protection is a fast-evolving market, and solutions that were put in place a decade or so ago are no longer suited to meet the needs of today's businesses. Here's a closer at some of the biggest data backup and disaster recovery (BDR) questions for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), and how managed service providers (MSPs) can alleviate these concerns.

Dan Kobialka, Contributing writer

December 9, 2014

2 Min Read
Data Protection: No Backup Means No Recovery

Successful backup is the foundation of disaster recovery and business continuity – without it, recovery and continuity cannot exist.

However, data protection is a fast-evolving market, and solutions that were put in place a decade or so ago are no longer suited to meet the needs of today’s businesses.

Data backup and disaster recovery (BDR) software provider Datto recently pointed out that most companies are aware that they need some way to protect their data.

Managed service providers (MSPs) can offer data BDR and business continuity solutions, but how can service providers assure small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that their offerings will perform consistently?

Let’s take a closer look at some of the biggest data BDR and disaster recovery questions for SMBs, and how MSPs can alleviate these concerns:

  1. Will backups always work properly? Delivering intelligent business continuity services ensures a customer’s systems are always bootable. An MSP also can offer screenshot verification so users can save backups in a virtual machine disk (VMDK) format and use screenshots to confirm or reject backups.

  2. How will data BDR and business continuity solutions work if hardware or systems fail? An MSP that explains exactly how it will respond if a business’ hardware or systems fail can help alleviate a company’s downtime concerns.

  3. How do you handle screenshots of archived data? – A service provider that manages the backup chain to hold backup screenshots together but make sure they are not dependent on each other can help SMBs leverage all of the available space on their devices, and therefore, store more screenshots.

  4. How do you offer secure data storage? Geographically separated, redundant data centers are key for an MSP to protect customer data in the event that a natural disaster completely wipes out one of its data storage locations.

Datto noted an MSP that wants to deliver data BDR and business continuity solutions needs to provide proof of backup, instant recovery, a smarter backup chain and secure storage to its customers.

And by doing so, a service provider can alleviate customers’ data BDR and business continuity concerns and deliver data protection against complex, evolving risks.

Share your thoughts about this story in the Comments section below, via Twitter @dkobialka or email me at [email protected].

About the Author

Dan Kobialka

Contributing writer, Penton Technology

Dan Kobialka is a contributing writer for MSPmentor and Talkin' Cloud. In the past, he has produced content for numerous print and online publications, including the Boston Business Journal, Boston Herald and Patch.com. Dan holds a M.A. in Print and Multimedia Journalism from Emerson College and a B.A. in English from Bridgewater State College (now Bridgewater State University). In his free time, Kobialka enjoys jogging, traveling, playing sports, touring breweries and watching football (Go Patriots!).  

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