What are backups, really?

In this article we go over what backups are, how they work and why your company needs its information protected — because protecting it is not optional.

So, what is a backup? It is a duplicate of your data, kept somewhere else: either a physical location in your office, or the cloud.

You can copy anything from an ordinary desktop to a full server — some files or all of them, applications, databases, and whatever else makes an operating system run, Windows being the obvious example.

The copy itself is made by software that replicates the data you select onto the storage you choose.

There is no shortage of places to put it. On the physical side: hard drives, USB sticks, DVDs, Blu-ray and more. On the cloud side: public services, or a managed one such as Nuubix Protección Total.

Which brings us to the rule that matters, known as 3-2-1: to protect your information properly you should keep three copies of it, on two different types of storage, with one of them off-site in the cloud.

Unlike public cloud providers, Nuubix Protección Total lets you back up many different servers and computers from a single web portal. Public providers will generally only back up the workloads you bought from them in the first place.

As we mentioned, backups come in several kinds. Among them:

• Specific files and folders
• Servers
• Desktops and laptops
• Applications such as databases
• Email
• Services like Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace
• Virtual machines

And plenty more besides.

Before the first copy: get a professional assessment

Before any backup runs, someone who knows what they are doing should look at three things: what is worth protecting, how it could be copied in practice, and how long it would take to get the data back if you ever needed it.

That is what makes the difference on the bad day. If a machine fails without warning, the data comes back the way it was planned to — whether that means one file, one folder, a single email, or an entire computer or server restored onto the same hardware or onto different hardware altogether.

Backing up and restoring data is now a basic part of running any organization. Having a service that takes care of it, and understanding how it is done safely, has become an ordinary management responsibility rather than a technical afterthought.

Remember: your data is the most valuable asset your business owns.

Tell us what you made of the article, and how you protect your company's data today.