Secured storage and assured data backup are very important features for every organization. The solutions for backup and storage of data should be cost efficient as well as sustainable apart from being easily accessible at any given time.
Cloud backup has emerged as the right solution for organization of all sizes that are struggling with continuous data generation and are looking for flexible yet sustainable ways to backup and store growing volumes of data. Many organizations prefer an outsourced data backup over an in-house facility for greater flexibility and const efficiency.
With cloud backup services, an enterprise gains capabilities for data encryption, de-duplication, and seamless protection of its valuable digital assets. Since the data is stored at remote data centers, there is an added protection against any type of disaster which may impact main facility.
Important Attributes of Cloud Storage and Backup
Cloud data backup is a step towards enabling assured data replication to facilitate recovery of data in the event of disasters. Traditional data storage systems are vulnerable to a wide range of catastrophic events such as theft, flooding, earthquakes, snowstorms, terrorist activities, or fire to name a few.
Such disasters can destroy valuable digital assets and put the very existence of the organization in jeopardy. Cloud data backup is designed to replicate files in real time. These backups can be either continuous or scheduled.
Unlike routine storage solutions offered by cloud hosting providers, cloud backup services retain the organization’s file system structure to enable rebuilding the HDD storage systems. Comprehensive cloud backup facilitates storage of all types of files such as photos, documents, and even video files.
Mitigate Hardware Costs
There are hardly any upfront hardware-installations required to establish cloud backup services. This results in significant cost savings because the data is not stored at enterprise IT infrastructure but at faraway data centers operated by service providers.
Cloud data backup software is designed for seamless integration with the current IT infrastructure and hence it is very easy to safeguard the data by way of encryption during its transfer to the remote data center facilities. In addition to cost reduction of the hardware, companies can also eliminate other expenditure associated with purchase and maintenance of software as well as hardware.
Unified Data Management
Cloud based storage completely differs from the data storage at company premises because the files in remote data centers are secured with encryption. Moreover, cloud based backup services facilitate centralized data management that would otherwise have been a complex proposition due to presence of multiple branches of the organization.
By shifting the management of data to cloud, companies can also reduce cost of bandwidth requirement to a great extent and also reduce the need for multiple data backup operations at various branch offices.
Data Protection
Any threat to security data can cripple an organization and result in huge financial burden in terms of costs to recover the lost data. While scouting for a right cloud data backup service provider, one must make sure that the vital data is going to be handled with utmost care and security.
Securing onsite data can be a very costly process for any small or medium sized company. Therefore the cloud data storage and backup facilities are preferred as more effective as well as economical alternatives. Reputed backup service providers guarantee data security by implementation of data encryption, and a host of security features including password management, digital signatures and more.
Enhanced Data Recovery Capability
The foremost benefit of a cloud data backup service is the facility of rapid and reliable data recovery. The very purpose of data backup is to enable recovery as and when required. Since the cloud based data can be easily accessed unlike the on-site data storage, you can always be assured to manage it from anywhere.
The robust data backup infrastructure offered by an established service provider is designed for multiple data recovery options. Moreover its single step process of data recovery is backed by centralized controls for instant restoration of lost data files.
Attributes of the Right Cloud Backup Provider
Cloud service providers enable use of different cloud hosting models such as public, private, and hybrid cloud solutions to facilitate state of the art cloud data backup facilities. These services also empower users with a wide array of data security features including data encryption, configuration of secure passwords, and de-duplication just to name a few.
Choice of cloud model such as public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud depends upon the security level of the data to be backed up. If the data is extremely sensitive and critical, then private cloud is a natural choice. In case of data associated with I/O operations one can leverage public cloud adoption.
A hybrid cloud model is being preferred by many organizations to facilitate storage and backup operations of all types of enterprise data. By storing sensitive data on private cloud and using public cloud for less important or sensitive data one can optimize costs.
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