Cloud backup is beneficial to businesses since it makes data more secure and retrieval or recovery so much easier. It reduces the need for traditional backup devices, such as hard drives, tape drives, catalog appliances, or media gateways. It also gives you access to your files anywhere. This means you don’t have to travel with a laptop or storage peripherals. In case of a disaster or power outage, you can access your data from multiple locations immediately, minimizing downtime.
Cloud backup can have several advantages. However, it can be challenging to make it successful. For instance, you must ensure your data is secure before making a backup of it on the cloud. You may also have to adopt zero-trust data security for cloud backup Linux to prevent any unauthorized access.
At any rate, to reduce downtime, there are measures you must undertake to truly benefit from this system. Here are six practical tips to ensure the success of a cloud backup:
Understand Recovery Objectives
Recovery objectives will help you determine the success criteria for your recovery plan. Here are some of the objectives that you may consider:
- Continuous Availability: You want to be able to access your data even if the network service goes down. For example, a prolonged power outage prevented you from accessing your past email messages or documents. With the continuous availability of a cloud backup system, you can retrieve the data in question. Cloud backup ensures that there will be less downtime. This means that your team will stay productive even during a file transfer.
- Maximum Recovery Time: You want to be able to restore a file as quickly as possible after an unforeseen problem occurs, like a ransomware attack or an accidental deletion of a file. Downtime is never good for business.
Understanding your recovery objectives allows you to determine how much protection is needed and its frequency. From there, you can set a backup schedule that meets your business needs by providing a framework for retrieving data during an interruption or a disaster.
Schedule Data Uploads During Off-Hours
Cloud backup is most advisable during off-hours so that no other bandwidth-hogging process occurs during backup. It will help speed up the process, and the backup process will be less prone to failure. If you do it during business hours, you might experience operational inefficiencies, like dropped connections and delayed notifications.
For instance, if you want to upload large files but it is peak season. Consider doing it when your customer support team is not receiving high traffic of customer inquiries.
Use Multithreaded Uploads
Multithreaded uploads can make your backup process faster. It is the process of dividing data strategically into several pieces and uploading each piece within a separate HTTP request. And by making a request for each piece simultaneously, uploading the entire data will be so much faster.
When enabling multithreaded uploads, you must turn on the ‘Chunks’ mode or the ‘Packages.’ This will allow the system to process the documents in multiple requests (i.e., in pieces) instead of a single large request. In other words, the storage can process one document after another, saving a higher percentage of your overall bandwidth usage. In other words, you can maximize upload speed while processing large amounts of data. It’s important to note, however, that multithreading is only possible if a storage solution has this feature.
Safeguard Endpoints
Endpoints like desktops, laptops, smartphones, and tablets are prone to cyber threats. They can be used to access sensitive corporate data, like payroll information, customer data, and financial records. If your employees use a compromised device, this can affect your cloud data and can, therefore, make you lose sensitive information.
Endpoint security is essential for ensuring the success of cloud backup. You can secure endpoints by using an endpoint management software to monitor users and detect suspicious activity on their devices. This software also provides visibility into all the devices in your organization, so you can detect potential security breaches before they happen. This way, you can stop them from maliciously accessing sensitive information.
Use Encryption And Two-Factor Authentication
Before transferring your files to the cloud, you must encrypt your data to strengthen your defense. Data encryption protects your documents if an unauthorized user tries to access them. For instance, if someone steals your laptop, they can’t use sensitive documents without an encryption key.
Another way to protect your files is by deploying two-factor authentication. It requires users to log in by entering a verification code sent via text message or email. If the first attempt fails, the system will send a second code. This setup prevents unauthorized access, keeping your data safe even if an unauthorized person has your laptop or mobile phone.
Perform Regular Tests
Performing backups shouldn’t be your end goal. You also have to be aware of the vulnerabilities in your methods by performing test backups and recovery. In this stage, you can discover errors and correct them immediately so that they won’t cause problems for your cloud storage.
You may run tests to know how long it takes to back up a certain amount of data or know how efficient the application is. You may do this once or twice a year, but it’s recommended to do this test more often.
Summing Up
Cloud backup allows for faster and more secure data storage and retrieval. Businesses use this method to reduce downtime, especially during a disaster or a power outage.
To ensure the success of a cloud backup, you will need a careful and strategic approach. First, you’ll have to list down your objectives and then find a cloud backup provider that can meet your needs. Then you’ll have to consider the backup schedule, which will help you identify whether the data upload process can interrupt other business activities and affect the speed of document transfers. Also, before the actual backup process, you must protect your data with encryption and use two-factor authentication to prevent unauthorized access. By doing all these steps, you will be sure your business data is secure, ready for retrieval regardless of the circumstances.