Data backup should be considered an essential part of running and maintaining a business. Every company and every organisation has data that cannot be easily or quickly replaced and in the event of data loss this can lead to lost revenue, disgruntled clients, and the loss of staff time during the data retrieval process. As well as information that most businesses would consider mission critical, employee information, client information, and project data can also become irretrievable.

Data loss is one of the most damaging events that can happen to any business and is one of the most common reasons for the failure of new small businesses costing companies millions of pounds every single month. Online data backup can usually be established so that data is stored automatically on a regular basis and should the need arise, this information can be quickly and easily retrieved. With daily backups the most your business stands to lose is a single day’s data – still damaging but less so than losing weeks or months of critical information.

The main benefit of business continuity planning is enabling your business to recover quickly from unexpected events that disrupt your IT systems.
A business that can demonstrate an effective business continuity plan has a competitive advantage. For example, if you provide services to customers that are dependent upon your IT systems, like an internet service provider, then evidence of a sound plan can be used to win or retain customers. For instance, if your business is a partner in a supply chain, business continuity planning may well need to be an integral part of your quality assurance.

Your Business Continuity plan should aim to reduce the risks posed by disruption to your business processes. Measures that you need to include:
• A back-up and data recovery strategy, including off-site storage.
• The development of a resilient IT infrastructure with redundancies (spare capacity) in case of failure. For example, mirrored central server computers sited in different locations, each containing the same information, so that if one goes down, the other one is available to ensure continuity of service and alternative storage facilities.
• The elimination of single points of failure, such as a single power supply.

Question for your IT manager
Q. In event of a disaster (such as a fire) how quickly can you have us back up and running?
A. If they have considered the above – the answer should be less than 4 hours

London – June 22, 2010 – Fifosys, one of Europe’s fastest growing providers of outsourced IT infrastructure solutions, today announced that it has been named as having the Best Public Cloud Implementation of the Asigra Cloud Backup platform. The award recognizes Fifosys for its success in the deployment and application of Asigra’s Cloud Backup™ platform in a public cloud environment. Fifosys was honored for its leadership in this area at the recently-held Asigra Cloud Backup Partner Summit in Toronto.

Fifosys won the award for its work with the London Medical clinic. The organisation’s previous tape-based storage system was rapidly becoming outdated, and in early 2009 the clinic started to look at solutions that could optimise its document backup and recovery. The aim was to ensure the ability to retrieve any lost data quickly and efficiently, especially in the event of a medical emergency. The tape-based system required staff to physically transport patient data, creating possible security and financial risks; consequently necessitating a more secure solution.
Fifosys carried out a full analysis of the company’s IT backup and data recovery needs. London Medical adopted Asigra’s complete Hybrid Cloud Backup and Recovery Software service throughout the clinic.
The Asigra system works with live and archived data, so London Medical was able to request that any data over 30 days old was archived, leaving only 15GB of data active.  Alternatively, the system could be set to provide staff with 90 days of financial backup.  However, the archived data could still be instantly retrieved if needed, even if a patient had returned to the clinic after two years’ absence.  
London Medical provides some of the world’s most advanced consultant-led diagnostic outpatient facilities for diabetes, heart disease, endocrinology, obesity, osteoporosis and eye disease.
London Medical can now be confident that patient data is secure. As an accredited MSP, Fifosys was able to provide a security statement, allowing London Medical to tender for public sector contracts in addition to treating private patients.  With an annual turnover of £5.9million, the company can also be certain that its financial data is protected, and that business continuity would be ensured in case of a systems failure.   
Dr. Ralph Abraham, Clinical Director at London Medical, comments: “Now I feel confident that all of our data is constantly protected; even if our systems go down or the clinic has a fire or flood, I know we can still get the data back. Our patients’ data is the lifeblood of London Medical and it is a priority for us to protect it and be able to manage it in a way that does not affect front line service or care.”

Asigra leverages the expertise of partners like Fifosys for new and innovative deployments of the Asigra Cloud Backup™ software platform, whether deployed to a public cloud, an internal private cloud or a hybrid implementation combining both.

Fifosys MD Mitesh Patel receives award from Asigra CEO David Farajun in Toronto

“Innovative partners have always played a fundamental role in the success of Asigra. Fifosys has demonstrated the technology and business skills that have enabled them to carve out a position as one of the elite providers of cloud backup services” said Asigra CEO David Farajun. “Fifosys has demonstrated a unique vision for the power of cloud backup and leveraged that vision into customer-focused services that deliver effective, efficient and comprehensive data protection.  We congratulate Fifosys for their leadership and thank all of our partners and customers who attended the Asigra Cloud Backup Partner Summit for their ongoing support in expanding access to the Asigra platform.”

 “Mitesh Patel, MD of Fifosys said, “We are delighted to be given recognition from Asigra, one of the pioneering companies in the field of Cloud Computing. Fifosys are committed to providing enterprise level solutions to the SMB market place and Asigra’s software allows us to do this with a competitive pricing model and a solution that works. By combining the Asigra software with our managed services offering, we are providing clients with an award winning proposition delivering Cloud Backup and Data Recovery services from our UK Fortress. ”

Yet, while it’s “obvious” to business owners, when we talk to them, that they don’t need all their business information instantly to hand all day every day, that “obvious” truth doesn’t always translate into their data management and storage activities. 

It’s why we see so many businesses paying over the odds to back up huge volumes of data on a continuous basis, without prioritising it according to how they use it and how quickly they would need it back.  It’s why we hear so many business owners saying data backup is the preserve of their IT manager and all they know is that their data is backed up daily, stored “somewhere” and (hopefully) someone in the office knows how to retrieve it if needed. 

And it’s why so many of our clients have recently started asking for our help to transform what we call “random acts of storage” into a coherent, customised data management and retrieval policy. 

Developing a data management strategy that works for your business starts with assessing and categorising the data you use and manage, identifying what you need for day-to-day operations and which files you can archive for longer or manage without for longer. 

Some people have a natural ‘belt-and-braces’ instinct and want a copy of everything retained off-site.  When you examine the true business need, however, you may find that they don’t necessarily ever need to have it all back immediately should they lose access to it locally.  On the other hand, we’ve come across people who are potentially TOO relaxed about the security of their business data.  One client told us he wasn’t that bothered because he ‘assumed’ his accountant would store all their accounts and tax files, his solicitor ‘probably’ kept copies of contracts and legal papers and his suppliers ‘surely must have copies of orders from us’.  Wonder if he ever checked with all those other companies – or indeed if they appreciate his reliance on their data storage policies?  Such eternal optimism isn’t typical of most business owners – and we’d usually recommend a slightly more pragmatic and responsible approach when it comes to taking responsibility for your own business data…  

Once the key parameters are defined for all aspects of your business, these imperatives drive your backup strategy.  That way, we make sure that your critical data is prioritised both for recovery and your business continuity. As we always remind every client, deciding what information should be backed up is first and foremost a business decision, not an IT option. 

And at Fifosys, we don’t just advise and support. Working so closely with clients in different sectors to develop tailored plans for data management, we were constantly asked to recommend appropriate product solutions and to manage the whole process. So we recently launched Fortress™, an automated, Cloud-based full-service backup and recovery solution designed specifically to meet the needs of small and medium sized (SME) businesses.  We see Fortress™ as integral to our portfolio of IT outsourcing solutions. It gives you a cost-effective, secure service to safeguard your business-critical data, with the confidence and certainty of rapid information restore if the worst happens.  

Fortress™ is simple to install, delivered via the Cloud and stored securely in UK data centres, and manages your information through its full lifecycle from discovery, off-site backup and archiving to appropriate data destruction.  Once your initial data set is backed up, only changes and additions are backed up subsequently, which dramatically reduces the volume of data sent into storage via the Cloud – and of course your continuing costs.  Central to the Fortress™ value proposition for business is its effective compression and de-duplication technology which optimises storage space and therefore the overall cost-effectiveness of the service.
So I go back to my original question and the instinctive reaction of so many business owners: “everyone knows” that not all information is the same.  So how much data are YOU storing?  How much do you add to it and how often?  How effectively is YOUR business information categorised, prioritised and organised in relation to your backup, archiving, recovery and retrieval facilities?  Are your business imperatives driving your data backup strategy – or is it the other way round? 

Random acts of storage?  Not if we can help it….