Secure Offsite Backup
A Secret Edge

Here is a chance to have an extra edge over the competition. A secure offsite backup for your business data and software is an integral part of your business resumption plan . The number of businesses of all sizes that operate without one would astound you.

In the daily operations of your small home-based online business you:

• Acquire business data (contact info., client info., competition info., …),
• Produce business data (financial, Web site content, research and analysis data …),
• Acquire and use business software (computer O/S, accounting, spreadsheet, word processor, multimedia, …).

Some of the above require a secure offsite backup, while others will require that backups be relatively close at hand, or easy to obtain.

As your business grows, backups will gradually become more critical to the integrity of your business operations.

To Each His Own

What you will decide to backup, how often, and how, will depend on the type of business you run, and your personal evaluation of the risks involved.

The backup requirements will, therefore, depend on your particular business situation.

The basics

The first candidates that absolutely require a secure offsite backup are the data and software your business absolutely depends on. As already mentioned in the subsection on the business resumption plan , the most common loss-causing events that come to mind are:

• Fire,
• Theft,
• Computer hard disk crash.

In case of a loss, you want to be able to have quick, easy access to all the essential data your business depends on. There are many ways of doing this. The choice of a solution will depend on the perceived urgency and importance of the given data sets and software.

I strongly recommend that you:

• Backup all your business related data daily.
• Backup each software package that cost money.

Some secure offsite backup solutions are cheap, but are perhaps less convenient in an emergency. Other solutions offer easier access, but are more expensive. Let's glance at two main avenues.

Home made solutions

You can copy your daily business data and vital software packages to CDs or DVDs that you store offsite yourself (i.e. family member's house). It is a cheap and effective solution, but you have to physically carry them over, daily for some data.

Some business people handle cash daily. They make a daily deposit at the bank, and store the data CDs in their safe deposit box by the same occasion.

The latter solution is less convenient if you need quick access to the backups outside of the bank's regular business hours!

You can also use a backup computer. I maintain a laptop fully configured and updated. It is a functional clone of my main computer. Both computers are connected to my LAN (local area network) through a router.

I copy every new data document to the laptop, as I generate them. I try to backup every one-hour's worth of work. This is a very convenient way to maintain a full system backup online, ready to go into service in an emergency.

As a bonus, the laptop can be used offsite too!

Commercial Offsite Backup Services

If you need quick and easy access to your data at all times, you might want to consider a commercial automated offsite backup service, as the secure offsite backup solution of choice. Online IT data backup services (IT for "Information Technology") are offered for fees that depend on the amount of storage space you require.

Stay tuned!

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