As a not-for-profit organisation, you have more at stake than lost productivity if your systems fail. Disrupted service delivery means you can’t support clients, and could result in reduced financial support from the government.
Thus, it’s critical to invest in a solid backup system to minimise downtime. You can do this in two ways, increasing restore time, and risk prevention.
There are local and remote backup options available, where local systems involve backing up to an on-site storage device, and remote systems refer to backing up over the Internet. You can have remote backup in the cloud, or in your own data centre. Gordon recommends using both local and cloud backup together for a complete backup solution.
“If minimising downtime is a massive priority, you should consider hybrid cloud backup solutions. That’s where you’re backing up to local storage media, and then replicating to the cloud. Local-only and remote-only solutions both have cons, but a hybrid system means you can leverage the best of both worlds.”
Hybrid solutions help mitigate the risks of both types of backup. Read on to learn how remote backup can help NFPs minimise downtime.
Local Backup Systems
Since clients rely on your organisation for help and support, it’s critical to have a backup system, which provides quick restores and reduces the likelihood of downtime occurring. Local backup excels with regards to restore times, although there are security risks, which increase the possibility of downtime occurring.
A local backup system means plugging a device into your server and copying systems onto a storage medium, whether that’s tape or disk drive, then either storing it onsite or transporting it elsewhere.
Restores from onsite backups are faster than remote backup restores, since they just need to be plugged in and transferred off the storage medium. However, in the event of a natural disaster, your onsite backups face the same risk as your primary systems.
“For example, we had a client who kept their removable media in the same room as their server. When a water pipe broke and flooded the server room, both the server and backups were irreversibly damaged, and they weren’t able to restore the lost information” - Tan.
Some organisations transport their backups offsite to negate this problem. However, doing so introduces security risks, which could result in downtime, further down the track.
“The staff member might misplace your backup, or leave it on the train. Even if the storage medium is encrypted, it's still a complete copy of your entire organisation on a removable drive, which someone can read, sell or ransom” - Tan.
While the restore times of local backup systems make it an attractive solution, a cloud solution reduces the amount of risk your organisation is exposed to. The best backup systems for minimising downtime should perform quick restores, but must also reduce instances where downtime may occur.
Remote Backup/Cloud Backup
Many NFPs now compete for government funding, so it’s more important than ever to deploy measures to protect your clients, and your organisation’s reputation from the costs of downtime. Although restores times for remote backup are dependent on Internet capability, remote backup systems eliminate some risks local-only solutions face.
“Remote backup is effectively transferring a copy of your systems over the Internet, into a secure storage facility that's properly managed by you or a third party.” - Tan.
The drawback of remote or cloud backup is restore times are reliant on Internet. When you restore from the cloud, you’re effectively downloading your systems over the Internet. If your Internet connection is poor, and you have a huge volume of data, it can take days to restore.
“As a rule of thumb, you can send ten percent of your data over your Internet connection every night. For example, if you're trying to do a remote backup of 400Gig, at least 40Gig is sent overnight” - Tan.
Therefore you should ensure you’ve defined your recovery objectives and calculated restore times based on your Internet capability, before you purchase any products.
On the other hand, remote backups triumph when it comes to risk prevention. A team of technical engineers are in charge of managing your backup system, so it’s less likely you’ll experience problems with your backup. Instead of physically dropping backups off at another location, you’re transferring fully encrypted information over a secure connection.
In addition, a cloud provider’s livelihood largely depends on being able to protect multiple organisations’ backup systems, thus the facility where your backup is stored is much more secure than your own infrastructure.
However, if you don’t have high speed Internet, a remote-only solution may not be for you. A more suitable option is combining remote and local backup to give you quick restores, while maintaining high levels of security. Therefore, if you’re looking for a comprehensive way to reduce downtime, look to hybrid solutions.
Hybrid Backup Systems
In order to minimise downtime, you ideally want rapid restore times, without compromising backup security. Using both local and remote backups together allows you to benefit from both types of systems.
In a hybrid solution, you’re copying to local storage media, then replicating to the cloud. Thus, you’re able to leverage the restore times of local systems if necessary, while eliminating the risks associated with manually transporting backups offsite. You don’t need to worry about backup security, since you have specialists and engineers in every discipline of IT monitoring your systems around the clock.
Gordon provides three steps to implementing a hybrid backup solution:
- Define your recovery objectives. Your RTO is how long you can afford to be down and RPO is how much data you’re comfortable losing. Ensure you have discussed with your internal IT or an external consultant about the restore times you can achieve with your current Internet connection.
- Browse for vendors. It’s important to take your time choosing the right vendor. Evaluate them based on things like their track record, and whether they’re going to be around for much longer. Determine which vendor is the best fit for your needs and requirements.
- Choose your software. Comprehensively discuss the backup software, as this ultimately determines the success of your backup system. Ensure your IT guy or external consultant is included in all discussions to ensure you’re making the right decisions along the way.
Downtime means productivity losses and increased costs, which translates into unsupported clients and a tarnished image. NFPs can’t afford these tangible and intangible costs, thus it’s vital to invest in a backup system, which covers all your bases. Vendors are springing up everywhere, so make sure you have a trusted IT consultant helping you discover potential solutions. When exploring options, think about your backup system the same way you do about health insurance. Sure, it might cost you a little extra each month, but in the long-term, you’re minimising risk and increasing your organisation’s lifetime.