One of the best ways to backup your business critical data is to opt for a remote offsite storage solution. An offsite storage solution or online storage service provider can meet all your business needs. Whether you are concerned about the ever expanding volumes of information or are looking for a viable storage solution that is safe and cheap, online storage solutions can meet your varied business needs. Given below is a compilation of various benefits and features associated with an offsite storage solution offered on an online network –
- Data loss can cripple any organization in today’s digital world. Your organization is dependent on digital records for all its operations including billing, purchasing, operations, and sales. An organization cannot afford to lose these business critical records. Offsite storage solutions guarantee 100% backup. Even if a natural calamity hits the area where your business is established, your essential business data will be safe on distant servers.
- It is advisable to follow the best practices for mitigating hardware and software failure. However, no amount of preparation can guarantee 100% security for your precious business data. Therefore, an online backup storage is a must for your business.
- Technically, an offsite storage solution is just about backing up your data on an online server located away from your original business establishment. These backups are usually automated by advanced software utilities. Data retrieval from a distant online server is very easy. You or any other executive authorized to access the business storage volume can retrieve data through a web browser.
- The only issue with an online storage service is that you require a broadband connection at all times. Whether you want to upload a document to the offsite storage server or are willing to download a file, you will need an internet connection to do so. However, availability of an internet connection is hardly a problem now. Internet penetration and broadband services have improved significantly in the last one decade. Therefore, the chances of an internet downtime are very rare.
- An offsite storage solution provider will allow you to use backup software for free. This software can be used to synchronize all backups according to specific configurations. You will need to dedicate fewer resources to data management tasks after you sign up for an online storage service.
You will require little or no external support to use these backup solutions. All you need is a computer with an operating system, a web browser, and an internet connection.
Other Data Storage Options
Unlike in the personal space, the exchange of data in the professional space is far more frequent. Thus, if you have a business, it is a given that your storage needs will change from time to time. This is particularly the case with small businesses that are looking to diversify.
If you have a small business, then there are a number of data storage options you could explore over a period of time. Be it the more traditional modes or the more recent online storage option, you can access a whole gamut of ideas to store important data and other information for your small business.
Before exploring data storage options for your small business, it is important to know why storage is important for the future of your business. A growing concern of many businesses is legal matters and the need to reproduce precise information as collected over a period of time.
For example, your business faces a lawsuit for some reason, and as part of the process you are asked to search through files as old as four or five- perhaps even ten years old. What would you do if you did not have all the important data saved somewhere? What if there was an incident where the hard copies of all the saved information got destroyed?
A data storage option used most frequently by small business owners is a flash drive. A device as small as a thumb, a flash drive is an excellent option when it comes to opting for an easy storage option. The reason why a lot of people prefer flash drives is because they have no intricate parts to be taken care of and can be used even while traveling.
Amongst other data storage options, external hard drives also serve effectively to save up critical information. Though they are bulkier than thumb drives, external hard drives usually come with a lot of space. This lets you create backups for all major files that are often required for your small business.
Final Thoughts on How to Manage a Small Business with Big Data Requirements
Small business owners are apt in making the best use of resources like local hard drives and online storage. As a small business owner, you cannot even survive the competition if you fail to squeeze everything out of a resource. Optimizing data storage resources is necessary under all circumstances. If you are a small company with huge data requirements, you need to be careful about a number of things, including:
1. Selection of a data storage medium according to total business volumes and budget.
2. Suitability of a data storage medium for data generated or accumulated by your company.
3. Level of security associated with a given storage medium and possible risks of data loss in the near future.
Start prioritizing your data according to access frequency and criticality.
Not everything accumulated and generated by your small business is important. You need to prioritize your data so as to choose appropriate data storage mediums. Less important data can be stored on external hard drives or normal servers. You can use cheap and less secure data storage options for less important data. However, if data security and integrity is critical, you need to choose a reliable data storage option.
You can pay for an online storage service in such cases. These services are ideal for small, as well as large businesses. This is mostly due to the fact that online storage is mostly an on-demand service. You can rent as much server space as you require. As your data storage demands continue to grow, you can ask for additional data volumes on a distant server of the online data storage company.
Formulate a data storage plan, create data storage policies, and stick to them.
Call all your senior management officials and discuss data storage issues with them. Brainstorming data risks, criticality of information, and parameters such as access frequency is very important. People assuming different positions within an organization can sit together and sort out a working data storage strategy.
Even a small business should have well defined data storage policies in place. Each employee within the organization should know about these policies. For example, an organization should clearly define the treatment that a customer record or invoice is given. Whether these records are directly uploaded to an online server or replicated at a local workstation, an employee should know what to do with them. Execute well defined policies, and your organization will never lose precious business data.
Photo via downtothewiredesigns