Essay Sample on Poor Backup Strategies

Introduction

As you are aware, data backup is the backbone of tech companies especially social media giants like your company, Twitter, and Facebook. Clients/users trust the company with vast amounts of data which they expect to be stored safely and easily retrieved when needed. That illustrates the need for sound and effective data backup mechanisms for tech companies. However, poor backup strategies have been noted as the 7th most common problem facing small and medium-sized IT companies. Despite the numerous methods and options available, many businesses do not back up data adequately. As such, it is prudent that large companies like Instagram exploit this niche while helping the struggling startups in developing efficient backup strategies.

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According to data provided by Badhel and Chole (2014), a business that loses critical data has a 50% chance to cease operations almost immediately. Worse, losing vital data increases a business' likelihood of going under to 90% within the next two years. Further, the costs of data loss extend to wastage of nineteen days of productivity money spent to recover data from spoiled disks. Thus, poor backup strategies have colossal adverse impacts on startups and medium-sized tech businesses.

Interestingly, even big corporations that believe that their data is safely stored could be at risk. It is a common thing to find the wrong data is backed up while the correct data is unavailable. In some instances, the tape backups might be unreliable as noted by Koulopoulos (2017) that only 50% of all tape backups restore successfully. It is important to note that a backup is only as effective as the test restore. With no backup tests, it is impossible to guarantee the safety of the data. Hence, all industry players should constantly carry out research, develop, and test new and better ways of protecting data.

The adverse effects of poor backup strategies can be prevented by implementing a series of simple steps. The first step involves the identification of critical data. Given that data backups comprise the backbone of an organization, this process should be carried out in conjunction with renowned consultants in this field. That is to ensure that the correct data is backed up with no mistakes, and that frequent backups are conducted. The next step involves the creation of a backup schedule followed by restoration of backup tests regularly. The hired consultants should test backup data sets to ensure that it is retrievable in its entirety.

Apart from identification of critical data to be backed up, the creation of backup schedules, and restoration of backup sets, consultants are also helpful in updating the backup routines especially after a software upgrade or other changes to the location of the critical information. Further, the consultants install security mechanisms which provide safety of the data. Data security is a major concern not only for social media companies but also for financial organizations and retailers.

While tapes are arguably safe from hackers, they can easily be stolen and present a complex task of recovering the files after the data has been corrupted. On the other hand, using the cloud is convenient and safe but only when the data has been encrypted. In the contemporary world, the amount of data that needs storing keeps on increasing day after another. Using tapes would mean that more and more tapes are needed daily. For that reason, it is advisable to use the cloud for data backups. However, it should only be used after the data has been encrypted and all recommended security measures installed.

References

Badhel, S. P., & Chole, V. (2014). A review on data back-up techniques for cloud computing. International Journal of Computer Science and Mobile Computing, 3(12), 538-542.

Koulopoulos, T. (2017, May 11). 60 Percent of Companies Fail in 6 Months Because of This (It's Not What You Think). Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/thomas-koulopoulos/the-biggest-risk-to-your-business-cant-be-eliminated-heres-how-you-can-survive-i.html