Small Business Talk
The Podcast to Grow your Business Faster
How Backups Can Make or Break Your Business With Andrew Dennehy
Show Notes
Background
Andrew Dennehy from PlanNet 32 Solutions is an IT consultant. He has many years of practical experience in the IT field and has had many high-profile roles, including global positions onshore and offshore for clients in Africa, Asia and Australia.
When Andrew not grappling with projects, he spends his spare time grappling in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu where his ongoing commitment and discipline to the sport have seen him rise to the rank of brown belt.
No Backup?
The number one issue that IT services find when servicing small businesses is the lack of a functional backup system for their information. While unexciting, they are essential to keeping your data safe and accessible when needed.
Sometimes even if a business does have a backup, it does not work when you attempt to use it. Ideally, business owners will test their backup and recovery system at least every six months. Can you recover a file from two years ago without issue?
The 3-2-1 Model
The best practice for small businesses is called the ‘3-2-1 model,’ meaning that there will be three copies of the data currently in circulation;
- A Live Copy
- A Backup Copy
- A Offline Copy
If you have 3 copies on the same computer hard disk and you lose access to that particular disk, all your work is gone. An offline copy ensures that if there are any problems with your servers or an accidental deletion, it can still be recovered.
DropBox or Sync?
A service like DropBox or Sync for file sharing is a good start – and certainly better than no backup at all – but you will want to turn to a cloud service eventually. If your PC is compromised then it can also take these services down with it, whereas a cloud service can roll back to a precious day.
Where to Start
Small businesses can start with a hosting service. Both Google and Microsoft use a cloud service that will host your data on their servers, so you can pay for a subscription to Office 365 or Microsoft 365 and simply let them host your email and files for you. That is the first two parts of your 3-2-1.
Then you will want to look at getting an external hard drive for your offline copy.
