Offsite Data Storage: It Is Far From Ideal!At the store where I work, my boss has an interesting idea of what offsite data storage is. He makes a backup tape of the day's business and then gives it to one of the employees to take home with them. While this is offsite storage, it is far from ideal. There are much more sophisticated and much more secure forms of storage. In fact, security is the whole idea of offsite storage. It keeps your day-to-day business information secure in a location other than your business. By storing copies of your information in a secure offsite location, you take care of at least one data storage solution. That is, you keep your information safe in the case that a fire, a flood or another natural disaster should damage or destroy your office and computer systems. After the disaster is over and your business can start operations again, you can easily reload these records onto your new computers, therefore you do not lose valuable business data. A good way to store your data offsite is to have it sent to the storage facility regularly through the Internet. Most of the data storage services that offer offsite storage will encrypt your data before they pull it from your computer. They then transport your data through the Internet in this encrypted form, and then store also in this form. By keeping this information in the encrypted form during the entire process, it is not vulnerable to security breaches or the tries of hackers or information thieves. Generally, businesses that offer offsite data storage will let you decide how often you upload the information from your system. You can upload weekly, daily or even hourly if needed. They will also upload your information at the same each day at your specifications. Another benefit of offsite data storage is this storage system keeps your information safe even if your computers are infected with a virus. For instance, in the case that your computers are wiped clean. Once you reinstall your programs, you can request your stored data from the offsite storage facility and they will send you copies of your records so you can reload them onto your machines. While my boss's idea of offsite data storage is not exactly the best or most secure way to store information, it is one way. Allowing an employee to take home an unencrypted backup tape can leave data unprotected, especially if the tape is lost or stolen. Copies of information stored at the business site can be destroyed by fire, flood or other natural disaster. If you have no backup at all, you open yourself up to losing all of your data with a virus or computer crash. Offsite data storage is the solution to all the problems associated with lost, damaged or deleted information. |