Businesses are now aware of the importance of corporate data backup: most use some form of archiving tool to copy their data, in case something goes badly wrong and the company server fails.
However, with Cloud computing now hugely improving business’ remote access to data (and file protection at the same time), the decentralised nature of modern corporate data can make it difficult to verify what is protected by on- or off-site backup provisions. Many businesses may not realise that their website is still at risk.
The company website – why your key asset needs backup
Unless your company hosts its own web server inside the company network (which is unusual), there is a very real chance that it is not being backed up. Like any information asset, loss of website data could be expensive.
Modern websites tend to be quite complex, with hundreds of pages, images and scripts being pulled together behind the scenes to create what you see on screen. Losing any of these files will affect the way that your site works, possibly breaking key functions, like the product purchasing mechanism.
Often there will also be a database that your site uses to store pages and file objects to improve performance and simplify management. Losing the database could mean that all of the pages and blog posts you have ever created are permanently gone. Not only is your site down, but there is no obvious way to get it back online – you could be looking at a complete website redevelopment to recover.
And the longer the site is down, the more business you lose. There are also secondary factors to consider, like the long-term effect an extended site outage has on your Google ranking.
A data protection issue
One other factor to consider is your business’ liability under the Data Protection Act which expects you to protect customer information from loss or theft. If your website database stores customer addresses and phone numbers, a catastrophic loss could see your business fined by the Information Commissioner’s Office – up to £5000 for each record lost.
How to get website backup right
It is vital that your disaster recovery regime also includes provisions for the company website. You could create a mechanism to download a copy of all your website data every day, but this would be complex and time consuming.
Alternatively you could choose a third party service like Broadband Cloud Solutions’ Remote Backup Solutions that automates the entire process. A specially created script is hosted on your website, triggering an automatic backup of all files, folders and databases. For added protection, the backed up files are then copied across to the Broadband Cloud Services datacentre, providing an off-site backup. In the event of a major disaster, you can then use these backup files to get the site back up and running in a short time. You can then rest easy that you’re not going to run into any of the problems above.
Get in touch today to learn more about backing up your company website and how our expert team can help – before something goes wrong.
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