The biggest obstacle many companies have in selecting a data backup service is not knowing how to evaluate a Michigan computer services company. There are hundreds of backup services and not all of them are ethical.
But not all service providers are created equal and you absolutely want to make sure you choose an ethical, reliable vendor or you’ll get burned with hidden costs, unexpected “gotchas,” or with the horrible discovery that your data wasn’t actually backed up correctly, leaving you high and dry when you need your data most.
Your remote backup provider should meet the following seven criteria:
1. Military-level security, data transfer, and data storage. While it may seem obvious many backup service companies are not actually secure themselves. After all, we are talking about your financial information, client data, and other sensitive information about your company. Never trust your data to any firm that doesn’t have the following security measures in place:
Ask your backup service company if they are compliant with HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, Gram-Leach-Bliley, or SEC NASD. These are government regulations that dictate how organizations with highly- sensitive data (like banks and doctor’s offices) handle, store, and transfer their data. If you are a medical or financial institution, you are required by law to work only with vendors who meet these stringent requirements. But even if you are NOT an organization that falls under one of these regulations, you still want to choose a provider who is because it’s a good sign that they have high-level security measures in place
2. Ensure the physical location where the data is stored is secure. Ask your service provider if they have an ID system, video surveillance, and some type of card key system to allow only authorized personnel to enter the site.
Make sure the data transfer is encrypted with SSL protocols to prevent a hacker from accessing the data while it’s being transferred.
3. Multiple data centers that are geographically dispersed. Anyone versed in data security knows the best way to avoid loss is to build redundancy into your operations. All that means is that your remote backup service should store multiple copies of your data in more than one location. That way, if a terrorist attack or natural disaster destroys one of their locations, they have backups of your backup in a different city where the disaster did not strike.
4. Require overnight copies of your data on a data storage media. Do no rely on internet recovery alone. Choose a backup provider that will provide overnight copies of your data via some physical storage device.
On that same token, ask your service provider if you have the option of having your initial backup performed through hard copy. Again, trying to transfer that amount of data online could take days or weeks. If you have a large amount of data to backup, it would be faster and more convenient to send it to them on DVD.
5. Make sure your data can be restored to a different computer than the one it was from which it was backed up. Amazingly, some backups can only be restored to the same computer they came from. If the original computer was burned in a fire, stolen, or destroyed in a flood, you’re left without a backup.
6. Demand daily status reports of your backup. All backup services should send you a daily e-mail to verify if your backup actually ran AND to report failures or problems. The more professional providers should also allow you to notify more than one person (like a technician or your IT person) in addition to yourself.
7. Demand help from a qualified technician. Many online backup services are “self-serve.” This allows them to provide a less expensive service to you. BUT if you don’t set your system to back up correctly, the money you will save will be insignificant compared to the losses you’ll suffer. At the very least, ask your service provider to walk you through the steps on the phone or to check your settings to make sure you did the setup properly.
The Single Most Important Thing To Look For When Choosing a Remote Backup Service Provider
While the above checks are important, one of the most critical characteristics of a backup service provider – and one that is often overlooked — is finding a service that will do regular test restores to check your backup and make sure the data is able to be recovered. You do not want to wait until your data has been wiped out to test your backup; yet that is exactly what most people do – and they pay for it dearly. If you are backing up critical business data, then monthly test restores should be performed. If your situation is a little less critical, then quarterly test restores are sufficient. A number of different factors can cause a corrupt backup. By testing it monthly, you’ll sleep a lot easier at night knowing you have a good, solid copy of your data available in the event of an unforeseen emergency.
