Why Offsite Storage Is Critical to Your Organization

We get it. You’ve built your business from the ground up and you’re proud of it. It’s your baby. Whether you’re a company of one or 100, it can be hard to give up control,which can make the decision to store your data offsite that much more difficult. However, ensuring that your business continuity plan includes storing your data offsite is one of the most beneficial things you can do for your organization. After all, when disaster strikes - natural or otherwise - there can be a variety of negative outcomes. For some businesses it’s possible that with every minute of downtime they’re losing potential sales revenue while, of course, being required to spend money to bring their systems back up quickly. For others, losing access to data could cripple their company’s ability to operate and put their relationships with clients and vendors at risk.

When considering offsite data storage for your organization it’s important to take into consideration a few factors. Below, we’ll discuss 3 factors and their significance.

1. Location

The entire objective of offsite storage is to have a copy of your files in an entirely separate location from where the main storage resides. That means that a server room in the same building isn’t sufficiently “offsite” enough for adequate backup. Think about it - if a fire rips through the building or there’s a flood, you’ll have two destroyed copies of data instead of just one, and zero problems solved. An ideal location is one that is far enough away that each set of data would be protected from any of the threats that the other might face, such as natural disasters.

2. Risk

As we alluded to above, when selecting your offsite storage facility, you’ll want to consider the risk factors that the data will face in both locations. For example, if your company is located in Tornado Valley, you’ll want your replicated data stored somewhere outside of the tornado threat area. However, you wouldn’t want it stored somewhere that faces other threats of its own, such as floods or wildfires. In some locations, though, it can be difficult to determine where the best location may be. Geographic areas like New England are often faced with a bevy of potential natural disasters every year ranging from hurricanes to blizzards and everything in between. In these instances (and many others) cloud storage options may be the best solution.

3. Availability

Finally, you’ll want to consider the availability of your data. Fortunately, many organizations are now able t to backup their data via the cloud and have it readily accessible from anywhere in the world within a matter of minutes. However, for organizations that use tape or other physical backup protocols they’ll need to consider the travel distance to the backup location. Every second counts when it comes to getting your organization back up and running, so it may not be the most practical solution to have physical data that needs to be transported from hours away.

To find out if your organization is truly ready for anything, take our business continuity quiz.