Tailor-Made Service From One Of The Best Data Backup Companies In the UK
Our data recovery services are specifically designed to ensure business continuity and facilitate cloud-based disaster recovery. Our standard procedure involves backing up your data according to a pre-determined schedule, which is mutually agreed upon at the signing of our 99% Service Level Agreement (SLA).
While our standard data backup schedule for small businesses operates on a 24-hour cycle, we can accommodate more frequent data storage requirements as outlined by your company. We will implement the necessary measures to meet those specific needs. Deleted files can be readily recovered through our hosted servers. In the event of a power outage or other system-wide disruption, we have advanced IT services in place, such as automatic failover systems, to seamlessly redirect your entire digital operations to a replicated server with an identical environment.
This near-instantaneous redirection ensures minimal to no downtime between the occurrence of an error and your system’s response. You can continue with your ongoing tasks almost immediately, as most replicated cloud-based software incorporates an auto-refresh function. You may also find our information on Cloud Disaster Recovery helpful in understanding how we protect your data in the cloud.”
Disaster Recovery Services Backed By A 99% SLA.
The Difference Between Data Backup And Disaster Recovery Services
The simplest way to understand the difference is through a hardware analogy. Imagine data backed up on a personal computer (PC) that subsequently malfunctions. If the data hasn’t been backed up externally, it’s essentially lost and unusable. To recover the data, the hard drive would need to be removed, installed in a new PC, and made compatible with its system to function.
Conversely, a cloud-based disaster recovery scenario involves backing up data on a separate PC. If the primary PC fails, an immediate replacement is available, allowing work to continue without any downtime.
With cloud computing, the above is readily achieved through server hosting or server replication, implemented for your entire workforce. Measures are established throughout your network for remote data recovery, ensuring that files stored on a shared network drive (which functions as a server) are backed up offsite for: a) automatic failover and b) tertiary backup (at a location separate from the primary offsite backup facility, thus providing three levels of redundancy) in the event of primary backup failures.
The 4 Types of Cloud Backup Solutions You Could Use
The type of data backup management plans you choose will depend on the severity of the crisis that you’re facing in your IT infrastructure and whether or not you can afford to have downtime. There are four common types of backup:
1. Full Backups – This is the most fundamental and comprehensive file recovery option. The entirety of the data is typically copied to an external storage medium, such as a hard disk drive. By consolidating all data onto a single medium, it can be readily available for business data recovery, minimising the restoration time to its minimum – a metric known as the ‘Recovery Time Objective’ (RTO). The RTO represents the estimated timeframe to restore a system to acceptable operational levels.
2. Incremental Backups – This backup method involves copying only the data that has been modified since the most recent backup operation. The advantage of this approach is that it typically requires copying less data compared to a full backup, as you won’t be updating your entire digital asset portfolio each time. This offers a more efficient means of backing up data and preparing for file recovery. A detailed version history must be meticulously maintained to track what was modified and when, ensuring appropriate backup procedures. Typically, our standard 24-hour scheduled backups will be incremental. Subsequently, a more comprehensive, system-wide full backup can be performed during periods of extended downtime, such as weekends.
Recover Deleted Files With Minimal Downtime.
3. Differential Backups – A differential backup operates similarly to an incremental backup, in that it copies all data that has changed since the preceding remote data backup. However, the key difference lies in its behaviour over time: each time it runs, it copies all the data that has changed since the last full backup. This offers a more secure form of incremental backup and can be illustrated with a straightforward example:
A full backup was performed at time (T). Subsequently, three changes occurred. When a differential backup runs, it will copy these three changes.
The following day, a further six changes are made. When the differential backup runs again, it will now copy the cumulative changes since time (T), which is three plus six changes, totalling nine changes. This is distinct from copying only the changes made on that specific day.
While this method requires more time due to the inherent duplication of some data, it offers enhanced safety in the long term for version control and data backup recovery. It will also still consume fewer resources and less time compared to a full backup.
4. Mirror Backups – This method operates similarly to a full backup, creating an exact replica of the source dataset. However, only the most recent version of the source data is stored on the server backup cloud. This often includes any backups created of the source data itself. Consequently, a mirror backup can serve as a ‘last resort’ recovery option if all other methods fail, providing rapid recovery time and immediate access to all your data at once. Mirroring necessitates a significant amount of storage capacity, incurs substantially higher costs, and is typically not essential for most organisations.
Ultimately, you will want to follow a tried-and-trusted rule in backing up your data: 3-2-1.
Three copies of the data, two hosted as backups on two different cloud servers (one failover and one a normal backup), and then a tertiary backup, which is offsite to the premises of the other two server-hosted backups.