Prior to the advent of cloud backup services, the prospect of safely storing your files and backing up your data was the stuff of IT nightmares. Thankfully, those days are long gone and the world has since embraced the beauty of the cloud: a sleek, smart, and simple software that can safeguard your data and give you that elusive peace of mind.
When it comes to cloud backup in Australia, there are a number of ways to ensure your system is operating at the optimal level for your personal or business needs. These simple tips can help you get the most out of your cloud backup solution.
Ensure automatic backups are set up
First and foremost, you want to make sure your backups are automatic rather than something you’ll have to do manually. It may seem obvious, but constant and recurring automation is key to continue protecting your data and avoiding human error.
Use a service that focuses on data safety
As handy and reliable as the cloud can be, it’s not totally immune to data risks. Herein, encryption should be your best friend: in other words, the process of turning original plain text into unreadable ciphertext which can only be deciphered by authorized parties.
This encryption should not only take place at the backends but rather while the data is at rest (that is, backed up and sitting in the service’s cloud servers until you restore it), as well as when in transit.
Be wary of data security measures
While on the topic of keeping your data safe when in the cloud, be sure to look for a service level agreement (SLA) as part of an organization’s offerings when researching your options. This should detail what security measures are actually in place as part of the backup process.
If operating a business, it’s also a good idea to ask your vendor how they will comply with any regulatory requirements for both software and storage. Another area to probe is data privacy capabilities, particularly if storing data on public infrastructure.
Replicate your backups
Backups are one thing; copies of those backups are another thing, and then copies of those copies are another thing altogether. While cloud backup is an ideal way to move data safely offsite, it can help to consider the value of replicating store backups locally, to the cloud, and to another site as well – just to stay on the safe side.
Explore analytics tools to hone in on backups
Last but certainly not least, analytics tools are a super handy way to simplify your backup when it comes to pinpointing and retrieving specific data. This is particularly pertinent to businesses: by enlisting an advanced business analytics tool as part of your cloud backup solution, your employees can easily and swiftly respond to requests for documents. This is also important in the instance of providing data to legal authorities, allowing you to retrieve the necessary information without shutting the entire company down.
