World Backup Day, March 31, is a time to remember how important it is to protect data and keep IT systems secure – and to take action to reach those goals.
The History of World Backup Day
Hard drive company Maxtor, which was later acquired by Seagate, is credited with coming up with the idea for a world backup event. The company declared the first backup month in 2005 as a reminder that data on small business servers and PCs is vulnerable to IT hardware damage and human error, and backing it up is a simple way to mitigate risks.
That same year, more businesses were waking up to the threat that cyberattacks posed to their data. According to Statista, businesses and organizations in the U.S. reported 157 data breaches in 2005 – which seems trivial compared to the 1,802 reported breaches in 2022. Times were simpler, but the risks to data were real.
Creating a global reminder to backup data experienced a resurgence in 2011, when the month-long celebration evolved into a single day. It was inspired by a Reddit post detailing the heartbreak of the data a user lost when a hard drive failed. And choosing to focus on March 31 wasn’t random. World Backup Day falls on the eve of April Fool’s Day, reminding businesses not to be fooled into believing their data is safe.
When World Backup Day began, 5 zettabytes (five billion terabytes) of data had been created, captured, copied, and consumed worldwide. Estimates project that number will climb close to 120 zettabytes in 2023 and 181 zettabytes by 2025. While the global volume of data won’t make much difference to a business that’s trying to recover from a terabyte of lost mission-critical data, it’s obvious the data that needs to be backed up is growing exponentially, making the awareness that World Backup Day creates more important than its ever been before.
What Smart IT Teams Do on World Backup Day
While World Backup Day provides a nudge to protect data, forward-thinking IT teams will also use the day to confirm they have an effective backup and recovery strategy. They’ll ensure that their policies and procedures are keeping up with the pace of digital transformation and staying one step ahead of hackers. The reality is, with rapid tech advancements, accelerated adoption of cloud services, and competitive pressures driving innovation, backup and recovery strategies that were sufficient on the last World Backup Day may not protect all data this year.
It’s a good idea to invest some time on March 31 into ensuring that all data, wherever it’s generated or used, is backed up. Also ensure vital data is recoverable based on your company’s recovery time objectives and recovery point objectives (RTO/RPO) and your backup and recovery solution can deliver reliable data protection.
A good place to start is with Veeam’s 3-2-1-1-0 rule that will help you keep data accessible and recoverable:
- 3: Keep three different copies of data
- 2: Use two different types of media
- 1: Keep one copy offsite
- 1: Make at least one copy offline, air-gapped, or immutable
- 0: Verify that backup and recoverability testing has zero errors
Following the rule ensures that on World Backup Day – or any day—you always have at least one recoverable copy of your data, uncorrupted by ransomware or other malware.
How Virtual Systems Can Help
It’s not unusual for businesses, particularly those without an in-house IT team, to need some guidance to develop an effective backup and recovery strategy and follow the 3-2-1-1-0 rule practically and cost-effectively. With Virtual Systems in your corner, you can determine the best plan for your business, including some options you may not have been aware of.
For example, as a Veeam Cloud Connect partner, Virtual Systems can help you store a copy of your backup on our infrastructure to create an offsite, immutable backup copy. You can also leverage Veeam’s SureBackup feature, which gives you the peace of mind that the backup copy has been verified as error-free. Additionally, the latest release of Veeam Backup & Replication (v12) enables us to offer continuous data protection (CDP) to customers that require short RTOs, down to less than one minute.
With the right plan and the right backup and data recovery tools, you can know your data is always accessible – and that’s a pretty good reason to celebrate. Contact us for more information on backup and recovery options and how to make the most of World Backup Day.
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