Backup Software

Computers and mobile devices help you search and store data that is imperative to your business. As cyberattacks occur more often, data security has become very important. If your data happens to get corrupted or stolen, you could end up spending heavily (both in terms of time and money) on hiring experts for the data recovery process, which most of the time is not successful. With the help of backup software and security measures, you can protect your data before any cyber attack or other disaster takes place.

Backup software helps you replicate important data residing on your computer or device and stores it in a secondary storage location. This tool has the ability to maintain different versions of the same file, which can be restored easily during disaster recovery, such as accidental file/data deletion, file corruption, and lost or stolen data.

In this Buyers Guide, we will learn more about backup software and its features and benefits.

Here’s what we'll cover:

• What is backup software?
• Common features of backup software
• What type of buyer are you?
• Benefits of backup software
• Market trends to understand

What is backup software?

Backup software is used by businesses to create duplicate copies of computer files, folders, documents, databases, hard drives, and server data to a storage medium. Businesses find the software helpful as it prevents data loss by allowing employees to restore lost data or replace original files in case of file corruption or deletion.

Backup software acts as a disaster recovery solution, allowing businesses to save their most critical data by performing scheduled backups over a period of time. This lets business leaders avoid business disruptions by keeping data secure and making it available whenever needed.

Common features of backup software

The most common backup software features include some or all of the following:

What type of buyer are you?

Before purchasing backup software, you should assess which buyer category you belong to. The majority of buyers fall into the following categories:

• Small and midsize businesses (SMBs) (up to 500 employees): Small and midsize businesses are more prone to data loss and file corruption because they have limited resources, budget, and expertise to fight malware and cyberthreats that lead to data theft. The loss of business data files can end up costing companies a lot of money, which can shut their businesses down or put them into heavy debt. Therefore, SMBs should opt for a backup solution that is easier to install and maintain. Backup software with features such as cloud storage, continuous backup, anti-virus, and archiving would be beneficial for these buyers, as it would help prevent total data loss and ensure disaster recovery.
• Large enterprises (over 500 employees): Compared to SMBs, large enterprises have more capital to spend on their data protection. But given their size, they have a large number of devices in a network that stores large amounts of data. Additionally, large enterprises have offices in different locations which makes their data vulnerable to threats such as cyberattacks, DDoS attacks, and insider threats. Corrupted, lost, or stolen data can cost businesses their revenue, customers, and brand reputation. A fully featured backup solution can be beneficial for buyers. Large enterprises should look for a tool that offers automatic backups, encryption, remote access, file sharing and security to help them backup and secure their data from any kind of threat.

Benefits of backup software

Listed below are some benefits you can expect from using a backup solution:

• Faster file recovery: The ability to restore data folders or files faster in order to keep your business running, recover lost revenue, and prevent downtime is very important when your files are corrupted or stolen. Backup software stores all necessary details and also provides scheduled backup options that will automatically store the latest version of the file or the data as you work on them. Such features allow you to access data within a few minutes and get it back in times of disaster such as, power failure, hard drive crashes, data deletion, and corruption.
• Data security: Your critical files and folders are encrypted before transferring to a storage medium for backup. This protects your backup data from being accessed or viewed by unauthorized parties or from falling into the wrong hands.
• Improved productivity: When it comes to a backup tool, there’s no need to worry about the safety and security of your duplicate files. The archived files can be used for strategic planning by performing a trend analysis or deriving forecasts of business outcomes. This can help you make more effective plans for the business which improves productivity. This also leads to a more effective and efficient workflow.

Market trends to understand

Here’s what you should keep in mind when selecting a backup software solution for your business:

• Multi-cloud backup will dominate the market: The move to multi-cloud within companies is becoming popular. This is because a multi-cloud environment (that includes public and private cloud storage) results in lower downtime for critical services by reducing the dependency on a single cloud provider, and better security by reducing the chances of data loss/leakage. Additionally, storing data in multiple clouds (also known as data redundancy) can save you money as it requires lower storage costs for companies located in different geographies. Realizing the popularity of the multi-cloud environment among organizations, backup software vendors have started partnering or integrating with leading cloud providers to offer data backup for multi-cloud enterprises in order to increase data redundancy and reliability.

Note: The application selected in this article is an example to show a feature in context and is not intended as an endorsement or recommendation. It has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable at the time of publication.