Business Nirvana: Cloud Delivers Continuity in Face of Challenges

Being able to keep a business running smoothly is more critical than ever in today’s competitive environment, and any interruption in service can lead to serious – even fatal – consequences. But trying to keep a business continually operating at a high level is demanding for any organization. Just consider some of the challenges:

• Cyberattacks: There were more than 4.5 billion data records that were compromised worldwide in the first half of 2018, and more complicated malware is expected to make threats even more difficult to detect in 2019.
• Disasters: While local backups may be able to recover IT systems from server failure and other common problems, those backups can be destroyed in a site-wide disaster such as an earthquake or flood.
• Human error: Businesses might believe they can recover data lost through human error on Office 365, for example, but Microsoft cannot recover the original file if it’s accidentally overwritten – and any recovery can take hours, days or weeks.

That’s why cloud backup is so important to business continuity today: It provides a way to access and recover data quickly and easily. Without it, organizations risk customers moving onto the competition and never returning.Here are some ways that your business can survive – and thrive – when using cloud backup:

• It’s automatic. No need to sweat the details; the cloud backup does exactly what the name implies. Need to recover information that a disgruntled employee deleted? You can do it in a few seconds. In addition, automatic audit reports allow you to see that backups are taking place and protecting your data.
• It’s cost effective. Gartner estimates that the average downtime from a natural disaster or ransomware attack is about $300,000 per hour because of lost productivity and revenue, in addition to damaging a company’s brand and reputation. Since data replication may be cost prohibitive for some organizations, cloud backup offers a viable, cost-effective disaster recovery plan that has predictable pricing.
• It’s always accessible. Businesses often operate across various time zones and in different countries. Cloud backup ensures that the data is safe and accessible 24/7.
• It’s safe. Data is transmitted and stored in an encrypted format.
• It’s customizable. Cloud recovery settings can be designed to fit any IT environment, whether it’s for a small or large organization. For example, a hybrid cloud solution can allow an organization to combine public cloud services like Amazon or Google with a private cloud infrastructure. With the public and private environment running independent of one another, they still can communicate via an encrypted connection, either through the public internet or through a private dedicated link.
• It’s efficient. If you need to prove your business is in compliance with various regulations, cloud backup can give you easy access to archived data. Or, if you require data for an investigation or electronic discovery efforts, cloud backup gives you easy access, ensuring information is collected in the fastest way possible. Cloud backup ensures your business continuity is not disrupted by personnel being pulled away to handle onerous data recovery.

At a time when businesses face malicious cyberattacks, growing international competition and new compliance measures, cloud backup offers a fast and easy way to manage the organization seamlessly while growing customer loyalty and boosting brand awareness.