“I’M SURE IT WILL WORK…”
What is this ‘CLOUD’ that everyone keeps talking about, I hear you asking?
Let’s take an example – A customer is speaking to a salesperson about keeping data secure…
Salesperson –
”Oh, you don’t want to keep any data on your server / that box in the corner of the room, connected to the internet. It’s not secure and you won’t comply with GDPR. And if the building burns down, what will you do then to retrieve all your data?”
Customer –
”Well, how do I know how secure their servers are? I have all my data backed up on this portable hard drive that I take home every night!”
Salesperson –
”Well, may I ask, how do you know it’s working, have you tested it lately and tried to recover data from the device?”
Customer –
”I’m sure it will work when I need it”.
KEEPING YOUR DATA SECURE WITH THE CLOUD
This is the type of conversations that happen daily when it comes to data security and where your data should be securely stored.
BUT the problem is that there are many forms of data and many terms that imply the same meaning but are totally different in reality.
For example, backing up files is not the same as saving them in a storage vault.
Microsoft OneDrive and SharePoint can both appear to be the same but one is static storge space and one is an active storage page which stores and keeps the updated versions of the same document as multiple people can edit simultaneously.
But even your Microsoft account is venerable to cyber attacks if your account doesn’t have a strong enough password in the first instance.
ALWAYS CARRY A SPARE
However, even if you are using OneDrive, SharePoint or even Google Docs, ALL of your data should be backed-up to a secure platform that allows data recovery in the event of a disaster.
It is not just Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint but the more important data tends to be customer data bases, usually written in SQL, where constant changes are made in line with contacting your customers, keeping a track of conversations and customer requirements. Billing data is critical and all payment history kept up to date.
This is the sort of data that can’t just be backed-up and recovered in a non-application data storage area line One drive.
Even to keep a duplicate of an SQL database on an on-site Server requires a secondary physical or virtual server environment and even then, if the physical server on which the virtual server runs, has a major meltdown, nothing will work in any case!
WHAT WORKS IN THE CLOUD, STAYS IN THE CLOUD
Can your company or business afford to be without access to any kind of data for any length of time?
It really isn’t about ‘my cloud or their cloud’, it’s about what systems can run on those ‘clouds’ as all data is different, i.e., static and active.
Once you have that part sorted, then looking for a secure cloud system that can securely back-up your data and databases and allow you to operate either from a different site (your own made-up cloud) or from a data back-up and restore data centre (their cloud) is all in the design of what is commonly known as disaster recovery.
‘How do we get up and running, as quickly as possible, without affecting business, if our building catches fire?’ is the question ALL businesses should be asking themselves every day.
And with the added complications of hackers constantly trying to steal customer data from companies all over the UK, leads onto the whole topic of GDPR and that’s for another day!
MAXIMUM NETWORKS
Get in touch with the Maximum Networks team team today on 0330 102 7444 or using our contact form