As a business owner, are you sipping your coffee in peace, knowing you have a data backup? Are you confident that your extra copy of data is robust enough to withstand hardware failures, cyberattacks, or natural disasters, and to get your business back up and running with minimal disruption? Maybe not.
Data backup is just an obvious step, not a strategy for keeping your business data secure. This is where data resiliency steps in. If this term is unfamiliar, that’s your cue to realise that your backup plans can crumble at any time. Redundancy and security should sit alongside backup as the crux of your data resiliency strategy. Let's learn why the traditional data backup mindset is no longer relevant and what a robust data resiliency plan looks like.
How is the traditional backup mindset holding you back?
Data backup simply means preserving point-in-time copies of data by taking periodic snapshots of data. This helps in recovering corrupted, deleted or destroyed data after an unforeseen event. The systems remain down while the data is being restored, and this downtime is the biggest flaw in your backup plan. Plus, modern ransomware can easily locate and corrupt even your backup data if it is connected to the same network as your active systems. Modern businesses thrive on a dynamic model comprising not just on-premise servers but cloud platforms, SaaS applications and remote endpoints, making data backup, security and recovery a continuous challenge.
Do you still believe that your data backup can promise
- Protection against targeted attacks
- Swift recovery timelines
- Multi-cloud integrated security
- Data immutability
Unfortunately, data backup alone cannot handle any of the above. If you are relying on it, you are falling into the trap of a huge assumption gap that might cost you your business’s progress and success.
The Assumption Gap
Imagine falling prey to a cyber attack and turning to your data backup for recovery, only to realise that it's not the gospel that you had been relying on for so long. If your data backup is your only strategy, let's understand how and where it will fail you:
- Incomplete coverage: This is known as the modern SaaS blind spot. Your data backup is only protecting the local servers and physical workstations, while cloud networks, SaaS platforms and remote workstations are left inadequately protected.
- Silent backup failures: A successful backup doesn't always guarantee recoverability when disaster strikes. Traditional backup systems are prone to various glitches such as unreadable, incomplete or missing data. This discrepancy might be caused by undetectable software glitches, storage capacity issues or faulty data transfer paths.
- Slow and complicated recovery: If you are considering your data backup as a goldmine in times of disaster, know that it actually takes as long as mining gold to get your data back. Connectivity and network bandwidth issues can hamper the backup process. Additionally, old hardware systems with limited RAM might not be capable enough to handle the processing required.
- Backups vulnerable to ransomware: Modern malware specifically targets backup systems first. If backup shares the same network and administrative credentials as the data, then launching an attack becomes very easy.
What a comprehensive backup strategy looks like - the foundation of true resiliency
If you want to build the backup foundation that resiliency depends on, your strategy should include:
- Data classification: the key here is to make different data sets based on sensitivity, value and criticality. Data can be classified as mission critical, important and archival. Then each data set can have its own tailor-made backup based on storage allocation, backup frequency, retention period and security.
- Backup frequency tiered by criticality: You are wasting resources if you use the same backup frequency for all data. Backup frequency must be determined based on data criticality - specifically, how much data loss the business can tolerate if a failure occurs between backups. The less data loss you can afford, the more frequently that data needs to be backed up.
- The 3-2-1 rule: This rule states that you need to maintain 3 total copies of the data, which need to be stored on 2 different types of media, and at least 1 copy should be stored remotely to build a resilient backup.
- Immutable backups: Immutable backup refers to data storage wherein data remains literally immutable, i.e. it cannot be deleted, encrypted or modified for a specific period of time called the retention period. This shields the data from malware attacks, human error and natural calamities.
- Full environment coverage: Backup should not just be limited to your local servers and physical workstations, but it should include all the infrastructure configuration layers, OS layers and application layers.
- Regular testing and verification: Once implemented, data backup measures cannot be blindly trusted. Regular testing and verification can reveal configuration errors and permission issues, along with corrupted and unreadable backups. It can also help you validate recovery timelines.
- Defined retention policies: A clear strategy on data retention timelines can help you manage storage well and minimise your organisation’s exposed attack surface.
These seven practices turn backup from a single point of failure into a resilient foundation - but full data resiliency goes a step further, extending into disaster recovery planning and failover architecture that keep operations running even while data is being restored.
Traditional vs. comprehensive - A comparison
| Dimension | Traditional Backup | Comprehensive Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Coverage | Servers and shared drives only | All sources: endpoints, SaaS, cloud, VMs |
| Backup frequency | Scheduled, often nightly | Tiered by data criticality |
| Verification | Rarely tested | Regularly tested and validated |
| Ransomware protection | Limited | Immutable copies, offsite storage |
| Retention | Ad hoc | Defined by policy and compliance needs |
| Recovery confidence | Assumed | Proven |
As a business owner, you know how each decision, big or small, holds critical importance. Your IT infrastructure is the backbone of your business, and before locking in on a backup strategy, you need to ask yourself some reflective questions:
Q1: When did you last use backup to help restore data, and was the recovery done within a pre-defined time period?
Q2: Do your backup measures include remote devices and cloud storage or only on-site physical servers?
Q3: Does your backup share the same network and administrative credentials as the original data?
Q4. Have you allocated storage and resources to maintain immutable data copies?
Q5: Do you have a documented retention policy, or are backups simply accumulating indefinitely?
Attaining data resilience is not a task but an ongoing goal that can keep your business secure and your resources relevant. Backup is only one layer of that protection - explore MM9's Cybersecurity 360° solutions to see how endpoint, network, and cloud security work together to defend the data your backup strategy is built to recover.