Are you a business that is, in any way, interested in self-preservation? If so, then a Backup as a Service (BaaS) solution like Veeam Cloud Connect is already going to be valuable.
The problem Veeam solves is the ever-growing risk to your server’s data security. Ransomware attacks grew by 485% in 2020, then almost doubled again in the first half of 2021.
It doesn’t matter whether the breach is the result of cyber criminals, an internal error or anything else. The financial, legal and reputational consequences of losing large chunks of your data don’t bear thinking about. That’s why a solution for backing up your server should be right at the top of your priority list. Right next to the word ‘urgent.’
That doesn’t mean that a BaaS platform like Veeam is right for every organisation. Let’s look at the options and how to get the most value for your own business.
Hard disks or Backup as a Service?
When it comes to ensuring your data is securely backed up, you have two options. You can either build your own solution or subscribe to Backup as a Service.
Building your own data backup will involve buying and installing hard disk storage. This is where tapes or hard disks are stored off-site, with backups maintained by your IT department. Everything is managed centrally within your organisation, which can be pretty cost-intensive to install and maintain. But it gives you full control over your data and ensures most of it will survive in the event of a catastrophe.
But apart from being expensive to run, there are other problems with this kind of hardware. It is easily outgrown or outlasted by the business. As you begin to scale and your data needs grow, so does your need to upgrade and replace your backup storage. And even if that doesn’t happen, your hard disks will fail over time. So you’ll need to replace them every 3-5 years.
Why BaaS and DRaaS often make more sense
BaaS is a cloud based backup solution that puts your long term data retention in the hands of a third party provider. This requires a heavy vetting procedure to make sure the provider is both secure and competent. The advantage of this model is that they are responsible for maintaining the integrity of both their hardware and your data. In turn, it removes a significant amount of cost, complexity and time required of your own business.
Additionally, disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) not only preserves your long term data, but also your short-term data, infrastructure, system state and security. It is designed to ensure that your business can get back on its feet quickly in the event of the worst happening.
These cloud backup services are accessed via monthly subscription, removing the need for large outlay that comes with buying storage outright. They are also scalable, as they are not reliant on you replacing or upgrading any obsolete storage.
Why Veeam Cloud Connect?
Veeam Cloud Connect works as a remote server backup. It operates as a cloud repository for your physical server, virtual workloads, your desktop and anything stored in the public cloud. If something disastrous happens to your system, the cloud version can replace it as a virtual server and you’re back in business.
We also like Veeam Backup and Replication because it’s a great solution to modernising your long term data retention. It offers fast, application-aware, image based backups for VMWare, Hyper-V and a number of other virtual platforms. But it also supports physical servers powered by Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac, as well as cloud workloads in AWS or Microsoft Azure.
Veeam offers exceptional protection from ransomware, among many other internal and external cybersecurity threats. It also offers immediate recovery and production data access in case things do go wrong. It will even restore your desktop icons in the same arrangement as you left them.
If you’re operating via a virtual environment, Veeam can restore a replica of your system with less than a minute of lost data. From a physical server it takes a little longer, with updates conducted every 300 seconds. But it remains an order of magnitude in improvement to the time and labour required for manual backups.
In short, Veeam works as a scalable, out of the box data protection solution to your increasingly complex data management challenges.
Make the most of Veeam Cloud Connect
The question you need to ask is this: How quickly do I generate data? If you offer a financial service, then losing an hour’s data is probably catastrophic.
For the fastest backup and disaster recovery, we’d recommend running your business through a fully virtualised server. This would allow Veeam to kick in within seconds to ensure the least possible data loss.
However, in a retail environment this isn’t always possible. Retailers are generally better off with a hybrid cloud backup solution because they need physical servers that are on premises. So if the internet goes down they can keep trading, thanks to their servers still running their internal network. This is where Veeam Cloud Connect can really help by silently backing up data every 300 seconds.
In a standard office environment, an hour of lost data would be inconvenient, but not necessarily world-ending. Veeam will still replicate and protect your data in its hosted cloud environment. But you can afford a slightly less intense frequency of data backup.
The advantage of Veeam is its flexibility. So if you’d like to receive more information about Veeam products and events, connect with one of our experts using the link below.
Learn more about cloud solutions for your business
Check out our resources and dig deeper on the best support for cloud computing for your business.
- Infographic: What are the main service points of cloud computing?
- Infographic: The business case for cloud computing
- Brand Battle: iDrive vs Google Drive
- Brand Battle: OneDrive vs AWS
Discover how you can make the most of cloud services to support, enhance, or protect your IT infrastructure. Get in touch with us for a free trial or demonstration.
