Cybercrime and data loss are ubiquitous. Both can cause devastating impacts for businesses. That’s why it’s imperative in our digital age, to take all necessary precautions and to use the latest advances in technology to keep your data and systems protected.

Managed backup and disaster recovery services are one of the key tools to help businesses to protect their data, and to minimize business continuity risks. 

Below we look at 8 reasons why choosing a managed service provider (MSP) is a good idea for businesses looking to safeguard their business data and continuity plans. 

What are managed backup and disaster recovery services?

Managed backups and disaster recovery services are two distinct services, which are complementary and can both be managed by an external third party service provider, or managed service provider (MSP). 

Managed backup solutions can be on-premise or cloud-based and aim to help you ensure that your data is safe and secure. Most MSP provide cloud-based backup and storage, along with dedicating resources to ensure that additional backup copies are made, following the 3-2-1 data backup best practice rule. 

Disaster recovery services rely on having a detailed plan for how to deal with a disaster like when an employee accidentally deletes files, if your hardware gets corrupted, or if you’re subject to a hack or malware attack. 

Disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) is a solution provided by third party MSPs to help you detect disasters, and respond to them efficiently and effectively - while also providing a plan of how to manage disasters (and which may include training your staff).

Why is it better for businesses to outsource backup and recovery solutions?

While you can take care of all your own digital backups and disaster recovery planning and implementation, there are a range of benefits to having a dedicated and experienced managed service provider (MSP) take care of these solutions for you.

Below we explore 8 of the top reasons why every business needs backup and disaster recovery services. This includes the ability to lower your costs, to be better able to respond quickly and effectively to threats, to ensure legal compliance with regulations around data storage and security, and to maintain business continuity and your reputation. 

If you’re looking for a reliable and professional MSP to assist you with your business backups and disaster recovery planning, NB Technology has a team of dedicated experts ready to assist you. 

8 reasons you need managed backup and recovery services 

Here are 8 top reasons that all businesses need managed backup and recovery services.

1. Lower your costs of backup and recovery

If you try to manage your own backup system in-house, that can take you a considerable amount of time and effort. In contrast, if you opt to use a professional MSP to manage your backups and recovery services on your behalf, you can save time and money and draw on their professional expertise. 

Outsourcing these services also helps businesses remain lean and agile, as you don’t need to have as many in-house IT staff which can further help to reduce your business operating costs. 

And by outsourcing these services to backup and recovery specialists, your in-house IT staff are also able to focus on other strategic IT issues that help accelerate your core business and boost efficiency and productivity. 

2. Access expert knowledge about secure backups and disaster recovery

MSPs can be highly experienced and qualified to keep your data safe and secure. Their experience also helps make them experts on working with different systems which means they can provide advice on how to improve your overall IT systems and infrastructure too. 

MSPs usually have a range of professional staff with highly trained experts which may have more experience and knowledge than your in-house staff who may be generalists. 

3. Ensure you're compliant with regulations 

There may be a host of different compliance regulations that you need to abide by to avoid legal penalties and fines. If you don’t have the expertise to know which laws to comply with and how to technically manage that, you’re leaving your business open to considerable risk.

It can be far more costly to deal with a data breach and consequent fines and penalties than to hire an MSP to ensure you maintain compliance. When it comes to certain industries like healthcare, compliance can be even more rigorous - for example complying with HIPAA regulations. 

4. Respond faster to disasters

Time is of the essence when it comes to responding to any IT disaster. The longer it takes to identify the problem or breach, and to fix it, the more your data and business continuity may be at risk. 

Data loss and breaches can significantly disrupt your ability to continue conducting business, can cause reputational damage, loss of customers, and result in heavy fines. 

If you have a robust and well-planned disaster recovery strategy in place, you’ll be better prepared to resolve the problem effectively and efficiently. 

Having an outsourced team who can assist you with disaster recovery, providing their skills and expertise can help support your internal IT team so that they can also focus on maintaining other key IT systems and processes.

5. Maintain your businesses’ reputation

If you aren’t backing up your data, and you aren’t equipped to deal with downtime, data loss and data threats, then your customers may start noticing and losing confidence in you. That can negatively impact your reputation and bottom line.

If you experience a significant data breach or loss, that reputational damage together with the legal costs could be crippling for your company. That’s why data backup and recovery solutions are an essential part of digital transformation and business continuity plans.

6. Provides you with peace of mind that disaster will be avoided or mitigated

Being able to minimize your business risks through a solid backup and recovery solution can help to give you the peace of mind that you need to focus on your core business strategy. 

Managed backup and disaster recovery services can take a load off of company owners and managers, who can then spend their energy on working to grow the business and increase sales.

7. Free up time and resources to focus on your core business

Another key reason to invest in managed backup and disaster recovery services is that it can help you to free up time and resources of your staff, so you can focus on your core business. 

Don’t underestimate the amount of time, energy and effort it takes to host your own server and data backups on-site. That’s in addition to the cost of having extra space to host the infrastructure, and the costs associated with energy bills related to keeping your servers and backup centers cool.

8. Set your expectations and enhance your business continuity

When you use the services of an MSP, you’ll sign a service level agreement (SLA) which will help to manage expectations around the service (and quality of service) they will provide. Most SLAs will detail the percentage of uptime that they can guarantee, and will also establish recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) related to disaster recovery. 

SLAs can also detail how often maintenance and monitoring will be conducted and you can add on additional services like antivirus software and ongoing cybersecurity services.

How to choose a managed service provider?

It’s clear that there are numerous benefits to hiring a managed service provider, but it can be challenging to choose an MSP. 

At NB Technology we assist companies with a range of managed IT services including disaster recovery and backup solutions, to help guard against threats associated with data loss and downtime. Our friendly team can help provide bespoke solutions to suit your needs and budget.

NB Technology, based in Belmont (North Carolina) assists businesses in monitoring threats 24/7 and implementing responses aimed at disaster recovery and data retrieval.

Contact us at (704) 644-1220 for a no obligation consultation to discuss your backup and disaster recovery needs and any inquiries you may have.