In today’s digital landscape, data is the backbone of every business, making data protection a top priority for managed service providers (MSPs). Offsite backups have become essential for safeguarding sensitive information against unforeseen disasters like natural events, theft, or cyberattacks. Whether it’s a flood, fire, or ransomware, having data securely stored in a separate location ensures business continuity and rapid recovery.
This blog delves into the importance of offsite backups for MSPs and outlines best practices for implementing them using Insight by eVelocityLabs, from automating the backup process to following the 3-2-1 rule. Learn how offsite backups can play a critical role in disaster recovery and compliance, while providing clients with peace of mind.
Why Are Offsite Backups Important?:
- Disaster Recovery: Offsite backups protect your data from local disasters like fires, floods, or theft. In case a disaster affects your primary site, having a backup located elsewhere ensures business continuity. Insight by eVelocityLabs allows MSPs to monitor both local and offsite backup locations.
- Data Security: Offsite backups offer protection from cyberattacks like ransomware. If local systems are compromised, offsite backups remain safe. Insight’s alert system notifies MSPs if there’s an issue with either local or offsite backups, allowing quick response to protect client data.
- Compliance Requirements: Many industries require businesses to store data in multiple locations.
What Qualifies as an Offsite Backup?:
- Physical Offsite Storage: Backup data stored in a separate geographic location, such as a remote data center or warehouse server. Insight tracks both physical servers and remote locations, providing MSPs with full visibility into the status of all backup repositories.
- Cloud Storage: Cloud-based backups (e.g., Azure) are a popular form of offsite storage.
- Remote Data Centers: Backups stored in dedicated offsite facilities. Insight makes it easy to monitor backups across multiple locations, ensuring both primary and secondary data centers are secure and functioning properly. As an MSP using Insight, you can also give this visibility to your clients. Green check on onsite, green check on offsite. All is well.
Best Practices for Offsite Backups:
- Follow the 3-2-1 Rule: Keep three copies of your data (one primary and two backups), store them on two different types of storage media, and ensure one copy is offsite. Insight helps you track these different backup locations, automating the monitoring process so you never miss a critical backup.
- Automate the Backup Process: Use tools like Insight by eVelocityLabs to monitor offsite backups, ensuring regular backups without manual intervention. Insight can track backup jobs, ensuring data is transferred on time.
- Encrypt Backups: Whether backups are stored in the cloud or at a remote data center, encryption is essential.
- Test Recovery Regularly: Ensure that backups are not just stored, but also tested regularly for restorability, reducing the risk of failed recovery attempts during a crisis.
- Use Redundancy: Don’t rely on a single offsite location. With Insight, MSPs can monitor multiple offsite locations, ensuring redundancy and safeguarding client data from any potential regional failures.
How Offsite Backups Fit Into a Disaster Recovery Plan:
- Offsite backups play a crucial role in any disaster recovery plan. Insight enables MSPs to easily create and manage custom disaster recovery (DR) plans for each client, ensuring that critical data is restored quickly and efficiently during a disaster.
- By regularly monitoring both backup repositories and leveraging DR plans, Insight ensures your MSP is always ready for the unexpected.
Popular Offsite Backup Solutions:
- Cloud Solutions: AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud are common options for offsite storage.
- Dedicated Offsite Servers: For businesses with stricter security requirements, storing backups in privately managed data centers or warehouse servers is another option.
- Hybrid Approaches: Many MSPs use both cloud and physical offsite backups for added security.
Ready to enhance your MSP’s data protection strategy with reliable offsite backups? Discover how Insight by eVelocityLabs can simplify backup monitoring and ensure your clients’ data is secure. Contact eVelocityLabs today for a demo and see how Insight can help you implement best practices for disaster recovery and data security!
