With hurricanes and snowstorms hitting communities along the east coast repeatedly, the last couple of years were some of the worst in history.
Most times, the damage is irreconcilable.
While it might seem trivial to think about cloud storage strategy when in the middle of a category 4 hurricane, not having a cloud backup strategy is one of the top reasons businesses fail after a natural disaster.
The risks of not having cloud backup
Hurricanes take a huge toll on businesses, especially the little guys.
According to Russel Honore, former Joint Task Force commander for Hurricane Katrina, forty percent of small businesses don’t survive these events. Insurance costs coupled with lack of revenue, paired with the fact they can’t access any of the their company software systems means they die.
When a hurricane hits, businesses flood and the electrical grid is knocked out for days. Affected companies close for a temporary period of time, crossing their fingers that that they will be able to reopen and rebuild.
Every day a business is closed, it bleeds money. Most organizations can’t absorb these costs and being shut down for months means they get so far behind that they can’t recover. While brick and mortar can be rebuilt, central data structures hosting a businesses’ assets cannot. If servers, computers and network infrastructure are wiped out, the company’s death is a foregone conclusion.
A 2010 report by Gartner stated that 43 percent of businesses went belly-up after a “major loss” of data, while 51% shut down within just two years. That leaves a measly 6% survival rate for businesses that suffer company-wide data loss. These are scary numbers.
The good news is: Businesses that migrate their data to the cloud are at significantly less risk of losing vital data. Not to mention, cloud services are not only more secure than their on-site counterparts, but also back up data with several levels of redundancy.
More reasons to invest in cloud backup
Hurricanes and other natural disasters are not the only reason to invest in cloud backup.
Disgruntled employees, freak accidents and hackers all pose a threat to your easily accessible on-site data. While these forces also threaten data on the cloud, the risks are reduced.
A 2012 Alert Logic report states “on-premises environment users actually suffer more [hacking] incidents” than cloud-based users, while also being subjected to “significantly more brute force attacks.”
If you backup your system to a number of off-site locations, it’s much more difficult for hackers to hold your data ransom or try and guess your passwords with automated systems.
That said, not every business absolutely needs the cloud to stay secure. Certain business models need on-site structures for various reasons, and a few find it more cost-effective. Still, the cloud is definitely something that any savvy business owner needs to examine closely as a potential option. It could mean the difference between flourishing and going under.
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