Who isn’t being affected by all the craziness in our world?  With the global financial markets failing on every continent and economic instability rampant everywhere, this is a time to make sure you’ve got your bases covered.

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity earlier this week to speak to 78 people on “Avoiding a Business Disaster” which I think is extremely relevant to all businesses in all industries.  Not only are companies running on the financial razor’s edge, but the majority of businesses big and small, successful and not-so-much are completely ignoring the importance of protecting their computer data.  

With a bankruptcy rate of 94% for companies that have a major data loss, there isn’t much else to be said. Computers are extremely important in all businesses and the data that get’s created on them is irreplaceable.  I always tell people, “It’s easy to buy a new computer, but there is no store on earth that sells your data!”.  If you lose it, it’s gone forever!  So if you’re not proactive and make the small investment to implement a quality data backup and more importantly data recovery solution, then you are asking for trouble.  It’s not a matter of “if”, but a matter “when” your business will experience computer problems and major data loss.  Computers aren’t perfect, and we the users are definitely nowhere close to perfect.

You must automatically back up your data onsite and to a long-term secure offsite storage provider or you will only have a small chance of recovering your data “when” you lose it.  There are very few backup solutions that actually give you a fighting chance of not losing your data.  Tapes don’t, disk backup doesn’t, and definitely most online only backup providers don’t.  That’s right, online backup sucks too!  Have you ever tried downloading gigs and gigs of data over the internet?  Especially from home / professional online only backup services that you pay less for than a cup of coffee?  I only have one thing to say about the fact that 70% of recoveries fail with most backup solutions… What’s the point in backup, if you can’t recover?

Enough with me ranting.  As you may be well aware, I am extremely passionate about the proper protection of computer data.  It is our business to assure that our clients have the best chance of recovering their data accurately and on-time when they need it most.   It pains me to see that close to 100% of businesses are not using an adequate data protection solution.

There are many factors that make up a proper backup and recovery solution; onsite backup, offsite backup, granular recovery, bulk recovery, security, compression, data integrity, automation, archiving, efficiency, incremental-forever storage, geopolitical location, geographical location, long-term secure storage, customer service, total cost of ownership, long-term data management, future-proofing, affordability, etc…the list goes on and on.  All these factors and many more have been considered by us at Toggle Networks to build the best backup and recovery service available on the market today.

When your world is crashing and it’s taking your data with it, Toggle will be here to make sure you don’t lose a thing.  Now the financial markets crashing is a different story, as we haven’t figured out how to recover your money yet!

I was recently asked, “How effective is your daily data backup in your practice?” I had no idea so I retorted, “Very effective… I think.” With over twenty-five years of experience in the dental industry, I have amassed extensive clinical and administrative knowledge. However, I confess that technical issues still perplex me.

My paths first crossed with data backup before the days of computers. A fire broke out in the building where my dental practice was located. As I hauled my A/R ledgers and appointment book outside to safety, it dawned on me how fragile data and our data storage were. As the firemen extinguished the fire, I reasoned I could not expect our staff to carry the heavy and cumbersome records home everyday. What preventative measures could be taken in the event of an after-hour disaster? I crossed my fingers and prayed disaster would never strike again.

As computers manifested into the workplace, my love-hate relationship with tape backups emerged. Each of five tapes, beautifully labeled with the days of the week, accompanied an “advanced” procedure: remove the previous day’s tape at the end of the day, tuck it into your purse and store it at home; insert today’s tape into the tape drive for immediate data storage. My colleagues and I were awestruck by our flawless practice; that is until disaster #2 struck. Our computer crashed. With tape backups in hand, we boldly approached our software vendor to recover our data. “What do you mean the data on the tapes is incomplete or missing? You can only recover 10% of our data?” I begged. One agonizing year later of recruiting help and sifting through day end sheets (which luckily we had printed beforehand), we recovered our lost data. Our misfortune was perplexing; we had done everything we were told to do. Our software company conceded, “Your tapes are old, but can be maintained current by purchasing new ones monthly for a mere $150/month.” Can we say robbery? Oh yes, and there was no guarantee with the tapes.

Data loss can be catastrophic when it strikes home. Cognizant that my most precious data is personal pictures, I burned all of my photos to CD. The peril of this simple and affordable approach was exposed when my home computer crashed. I loaded the first of thirteen CD’s onto my fixed computer only to find nothing. I lost all of my pictures of my children, holidays and special occasions; even my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. The sting of that moment will forever haunt me.

May the age of automation have mercy on me? There must be a bright side to technology. I settled into the world of “automatic timely back-ups” (too good to be true), data encryption (say what?) and 100% restoration (right, I have heard that before). My software vendor was annoyed by my skepticism proclaiming I should be “thankful for technology.” Forgive my doubt but his artificial words did not deliver peaceful slumber.

I will be the first to admit it is easier to believe the plethora of lies out there about data protection, than to uncover the truth and establish proper protection. However I cannot disregard the anguish of data loss or the vast ignorance that surrounds it. While the dental software I most recently used was best in class, it was non-compliant with provincial dental association’s data retention requirements; we did not maintain or protect ten years of our patient files. If we ever had to restore our data, we would have been shocked by the sticker price that we thought was included in our monthly fee.

One thing I am certain, you will be threatened by data loss. Computers fail. Make sure you are protecting what you could not afford to lose. No matter how great software affects your bottom line, or how gorgeous that picture is of your newborn, it is worth nothing when it is gone and will cost you more than you could ever imagine. I encourage you to avoid the pain I experienced by taking the time to discuss the importance of this matter with someone who specializes in IT data backup. Ensure that your system will allow for complete disaster recovery. Ignorance is not bliss, at least not when we are talking computers.

Nelle Pedersen currently serves on the executive team of Toggle Networks, Inc, a Calgary firm committed to data protection.