How to avoid data disasters and back up blowouts 

How is essential is your data to your business? Customer records, stock information, seven years of financial reports… It’s all information that cannot easily be replaced if something happens to it and it could mean the temporary end of operations.  

In the last year alone, New Zealanders reported losing $16,800,000 in 2021 due to cybercrime. Businesses across NZ and AU have had to deal with the impact of flooding and fires in their businesses. Companies have insurance to get back on their feet financially, but what about getting back on their feet operationally with their data?  

Common data risks:

• Cyber incident – This is where your data could be stolen, deleted, damaged or encrypted by malware and held for ransom. Encryption incidents are the highest reported for small businesses.  
• Equipment damage – This could lead to the data on a computer or device being lost or unreadable. In some cases, it can be recovered but this can be a costly process. 
• Destruction of property – The most common causes are fire or a natural disaster (like flooding) leading to the loss of all data. 
• Software failure or human error – A monthly rollover gone wrong or a user entering incorrect data or deleting data, accidentally or otherwise. 

How can you keep your data safe?

• Daily backups – Create automatic backups so there is no risk of human error or forgetting to do it, just set and forget.
• Test your backups – Backups should be tested to ensure they are useable as expected. These should be done once or twice a year. 
• Offsite storage – Don’t put all your eggs in one basket by backing up in one place. If you have an onsite issue and you keep your backups onsite, then they will be useless to you. Run regular backups to a USB drive or tape drive and take this home with you.
• Monitor your equipment – Much like a car, computers require maintenance to ensure issues are picked up early. Engage an IT partner that can manage regular maintenance of your equipment and software. 
• Plan for it – Document a backup plan detailing how to get things back online quickly. This should cover who does what, where the data is stored, how to restore the data, and when to expect to be up and running again. 

How we can help

At Auxo Software, we help hosted customers to manage their data by including backup services in the package. Remote access via hosting allows us to connect your software remotely and manage backups for you. 

• Daily backups – Auxo carries out regular backups of all customer data for hosted sites. This is stored onsite and offsite, in online and offline copies. 
• Secure data storage – our offsite data recovery partner stores your information in purpose-built facilities (yes, multiple sites) and in multiple formats. 
• Restoring your data – the Auxo team can jump into action when an incident occurs. We will restore your data for the period of time impacted and get you up and running quickly. Restoration can take anywhere between a few minutes to a few hours depending on the size of the restoration.