What Does Redundancy Mean for Your Business

If you were to lose your business’ data, would you be able to continue operations? The answer is almost always “no,” so you need to take precautions before you inevitably suffer from an unpredictable threat like a hardware failure or hacking attack. Unfortunately, the average small business might have trouble affording such comprehensive coverage, which is a trend that we’re trying to help local organizations buck. If you’re stuck on data recovery, we want to help you better understand data redundancy.

Redundancy is a term which has increased in usage thanks to the business world. Generally speaking, redundant means not needed or superfluous, but when it comes to data, having a second copy of it can’t hurt. It’s better to be prepared for the worst, just in case it happens.

Thus, you have the term data redundancy--the act of having a second or third copy of your data in the event that something goes wrong, and your data is unavailable. Here are some of the most important aspects of data redundancy to keep in mind when thinking about data backup and disaster recovery.

What’s the Data Amount?
Your data backup solution can likely only handle so much. For example, a traditional tape backup system could potentially take an entire backup of your infrastructure, but you’d have to wait several hours to do it, lest it interfere with your normal operating hours. Plus, since you’re only taking one data backup every day, you could potentially lose out on an entire day’s worth of productivity and effort. Ideally, you want a data backup solution that can take a backup as often as every fifteen minutes, as this minimizes data loss. The snapshot-based data backup solution provided by XFER allows for smaller, more frequent backups taken throughout the workday, fostering redundancy of your data.

The Time It Takes to Recover
As previously mentioned, the amount of time it takes to recover can be a major challenge for some businesses. Since tape backup can take ages in order to fully restore your data, you’ll want to opt for a system that can practically instantaneously restore your business’ data to any able device. A comprehensive backup and disaster recovery system (BDR) that uses cloud technology, can accomplish this, providing your organization with minimal downtime and maximum redundancy.

Your Data Backup Locations
Redundancy is all about storing your extra data in places where it is safe from harm. You should generally follow what’s called the 3-2-1 data backup rule, which states that you should have three copies of your data in total, with two of them being off-site in a secure data center or the cloud, and one on-site for an emergency event.

How does your business ensure data redundancy? We know how you should be doing it--with XFER’s Data Backup and Disaster Recovery solution. To learn more, reach out to us at 734-927-6666 / 800-GET-XFER.