Get your back-up procedures right

This article first appeared October 25, 2011.

Optus has released some very interesting research on how SMEs use technology.

It once again contains the most depressing statistic in the world – that almost half of all SMEs don’t have a website – but I’d like to look a little deeper at a worrying statistic around backing up data.

Apparently only 21% of the 850 SMEs surveyed regularly back up their data. Of those that do back up data, 53% of those do it onsite, while just 8% do it offsite.

Great work by those that actually bother with regular back-ups, but I do have to question their processes.

If a fire sweeps through your business or some other natural disaster strikes, having all of your data back-ups sitting next to the original data isn’t exactly going to help you much.

The best back-up system is one that is regular and allows data to be stored offsite. There are now plenty of cloud-based services that allow relatively cheap access to online back-up services – if you can’t tackle this yourself, get your IT provider to help.

But this needs to be taken seriously. Cyber attacks are unfortunately going to be part of life for SMEs and the damage done by loss of data can be enormous.

Get it done – today!