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Importance of backup to SMBs
With sales contracts, accounting records, marketing materials, business contacts and emails all being stored in digital format nowadays, it has become increasingly important for all businesses to back up your business data, because, in the event of hardware failure, restoring data from the backup is a much cheaper operation than rebuilding from scratch.
Your data are growing exponentially
If you find yourself now in a situation where you have to deal with an explosion in the volume of your business data, you are not alone. The accelerating pace of data creation, accumulation, and diffusion is becoming an increasingly common phenomenon among companies throughout the world today. Data is growing exponentially due to widespread use of the Internet, email, and media-rich software. As early as 2002, International Data Corporation (IDC) projected a dizzying annual data growth rate of 80%.
1MB of data is worth US$10,000
Viewed from a strategic perspective, your data represent the core of your business. You have invested a lot of TIME, MONEY and EFFORT in developing your business data. Contracts, sales records, proposals, accounting records, marketing material, business contacts, emails, and even digital photos taken in important events, etc., make up the bulk of your invaluable business assets, which you cannot afford to lose.
Studies have shown that:
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1MB of data is worth approximately US$10,0001. |
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Re-building just 20MB of lost data could cost more than US$17,000 and take nearly
three weeks to complete 2. |
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A leaked record may cost you US$180 to rectify3. |
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Retrieval of data from a crashed hard drive is often extremely costly, and there is
NO GUARANTEE of success! 1 |
Data loss makes your business suffer
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Your business data go hand in hand with your business operations. The loss of
such data, or even their temporary inaccessibility, may threaten your hard-earned
competitive position. |
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Companies without proactive backup and recovery policies are likely to be
OUT OF BUSINESS within 2 years of a major disaster4. |
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Loss of business data may ruin your company’s reputation, and may lead to
expensive litigation. |
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Worst of all, it interrupts your business continuity. |
Causes of data loss
Conventional approaches to backup are not good enough
Poor “unstructured” conventional backup methodologies, such as tape, CD Rom, and external hard drive, etc., are not good enough because of:
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High failure rates during data restoration |
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Difficulty in detecting problems of backup before performing restoration |
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Slow read / write speed |
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High maintenace cost |
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Expensive offsite storage of tape library |
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Reduced flexibility for backup caused by fixed capacity per backup media |
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Increased likelihood of occurrence of negligence-induced problems
(e.g. lost or misplaced data) |
1 The Cost of Lost Data - The importance of investing in that “ounce of prevention” 2003, David M. Smith, Ph.D,
2 Source: Recent study from Ontrack
3 Data Breach Study,Oct. 2005 Ponemon Institute
4 Study by the National Archives and Records Administration
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