Server Backup Software: Everything You Need To Know
What Is Backup And Recovery?
Backup and recovery is the process of creating copies of your data and writing them out to a secondary storage environment so that you can restore them should the original versions be compromised, deleted, or destroyed.
Backing up and restoring your data manually can be challenging, time consuming, and expensive; it requires you to build and maintain the architecture of your backup environment, manually schedule and test your backups regularly, and deduplicate backups as they’re created.
Because of this, we recommend investing in a third-party backup and recovery solution that will do this for you. Third-party backup tools also often come with added security features built in, such as encryption, multi-factor authentication, role-based access, and ransomware protection. Some also offer compliance-specific features that make it easier to ensure you’re backing up, storing, and recovering your data in line with data protection and privacy regulations.
How Do Server Backups Work?
There are three main ways in which a backup and recovery solution may create backups of your server data:
- The solution creates full backups, making a new backup of every piece of data each time you run a backup. This enables you to restore your data fully and quickly from a single backup, but creating those backups takes a long time and uses a lot of storage space.
- The solution creates differential backups, creating one full backup and then only backing up data that had changed since that full backup. This improves backup speed and means you’ll have less duplicate backups, but slows down restoration as you have to restore the full backup, then the latest differential backup on top.
- The solution creates incremental backups, creating one full backup then only backing up data that has changed since the last backup of any kind. This is the fastest way to backup your data and it requires the least storage space, but it takes the longest time to restore data as you have to retore the full backup, then each incremental backup on top.
Once the backup solution has used one of these methods to create copies of your server data, it writes that data out to a secondary storage facility. This could be in their own private cloud server, in a public cloud server such as Azure or AWS, or on-prem on a local hard drive, disk, or physical server. Some providers also offer hybrid storage options, which allow you to create multiple backup copies and store them both in the cloud and on-prem. This means that no single incident will be able to destroy all of your backups.
You can find more information on the types on backup storage in our market guide to cloud backup and recovery.
Why Do You Need To Backup Your Servers?
The first reason that you should consider backup up your server data is ransomware. Ransomware is a form of malware that holds data hostage by encrypting it, or locks users out of that data. When a threat actor successfully seizes an organization’s data using ransomware, they demand a sum of money for its return. However, it’s important to remember that you’re dealing with a cybercriminal here; paying the ransom doesn’t guarantee you’ll get your data back, nor does it ensure that the attacker will clear the malware from your systems afterwards.
The most effective and efficient way to recover from a ransomware attack is to completely wipe all your systems and storage devices, then reinstall your applications and restore your data using backups. Of course, you can only do this if you’ve created those backups in the first place *pointed look*.
The second benefit to server backup solutions is that they can help you restore data in the event it’s accidentally deleted. The best server backup solutions not only allow you to carry out full system restores, but also offer intuitive search and discovery tools that enable you to easily find and restore individual items.
Backing up your servers can also help you mitigate server downtime caused by natural disasters and hardware failures. While natural disasters are only responsible for 5% of business downtime, almost 25% of organizationsassociate old and inadequate server hardware with reliability issues and downtime. Downtime doesn’t necessarily mean permanent data loss, but it can still cause major disruptions to business operations. In the event of extended downtime caused by a flood, fire, or even just faulty server hardware, a server backup solution can help keep your business productive.
Finally, your organization may be required by federal or industry data protection standards to backup your server data. HIPAA and SOX are among those regulations that explicitly require backups, and there are many others that recommend it as a means of safeguarding your data. If you are looking for a server backup tool for compliance, it’s important that you know exactly what is required of you and find a tool that will enable you to achieve it; for example, you may need to retain backups for a specific period of time, secure them in a certain way, or store them in a certain location.
What Features Should You Look For In A Server Backup Solution?
When comparing server backup software, there are a few key features that you should look out for:
- Automatic and on-demand backups that create copies of your data multiple times a day, or whenever a change is made to a file (continuous data protection)
- Non-destructive, flexible restoration options that allow you to choose which data to restore, to which location it should be restored , and in which format it should be restored
- Granular search and discovery capabilities with filters and a keyword search tool, which let you find the specific data you want to restore
- User authentication that ensures only verified, authorized users can access the backup repository
- An activity log of all user and admin activity within the backup repository and management console
- Compliance with any data protection standards that your organization must comply with, e.g., retention periods, data sovereignty, and security requirements such as encryption
Note: while all these features are important in a server backup tool, you need to prioritize them according to what’s most important to your organization. To do this, you should create an implementation strategy that outlines your main requirements before you start comparing solutions. This should include details such as your storage, retention, and data sovereignty requirements, as well as any other security and compliance needs.
