5 November 2024, Tue |
6:56 PM
Data Protection Day is an annual event that serves to remind and educate organisations about the most effective ways to prepare for the wide range of dangers to business continuity that exist in today’s global digital economy. The capacity to backup and recover data at any time is a critical aspect of any Modern Data Protection plan, from increasing defences against ransomware to training personnel in regulatory compliance. In 2022, Veeam recommends that all enterprises use the enhanced 3-2-1-1-0 backup rule as their best practise.
Comment from Rick Vanover, Senior Director, Product Strategy, Veeam
“At Veeam we recommend that businesses view 3-2-1-1-0 as a rule to live by when it comes to protecting their day. It’s a logical evolution from the more commonly understood 3-2-1 rule, originally concepted by world-renowned photographer Peter Krogh, which states that you should always keep three copies of data, on two different forms of media, with one copy off site. Given the scale and diversity of threats to business continuity in the digital economy, this should be viewed as a starting point. To achieve the resiliency demanded by the increasingly volatile threat landscape, businesses must add another one and a zero. As well as keeping one copy offsite, keep one offline, which is air-gapped or immutable. And always remember that when you restore your data, you are aiming for zero surprises, so you need to use a recovery verification solution to be sure that any data you have backed up can be fully restored in the shortest time possible.”
You should have at least two additional backup files in addition to your primary data for adequate security.
Something going wrong on three devices at the same time is far less likely than on two, especially since the primary backup is frequently kept close to the original data. The original data and primary backup may be lost in the event of a disaster. As a backup in case of disaster, the secondary backup should be kept separate from the primary data.
One backup copy should be kept on an internal hard disc drive, while the other should be kept on removable storage media such as tape, external hard disc drives, cloud storage, and so on.
If an outage or cyber-attack impacting data saved on a certain media format occurs, storing both versions of your backup on the same type of storage media increases the risk of losing all of your backup data.
Alternatively, if the hard disc drives on both systems are of a different brand, size, and kind, store your primary backup on internal hard disc drives of a physical server and your secondary backup on internal hard disc drives of a NAS.
Keep at least one backup copy separate from the primary data and primary backup’s physical location. It’s best if you don’t maintain your second copy in the same physical spot as your first. This is because everything in that one spot could be destroyed in the case of a disaster such as a fire or flooding. If your original data, primary backup, and secondary backup were all kept in the same location, it would be lost forever.
You can store a copy of your backup data in a private cloud via a service provider or in the public cloud for enterprises without various locations.
At least one backup copy should be kept offline, separated from the network and from any IT infrastructure. Rotating external USB-disks, tape, and object storage with immutability are examples of offline media.
Everything on your network is potentially exposed if a hacker gains access to your IT environment. Keep an offline duplicate of your data, protected with an encryption key, to prevent external or internal dangers from tampering with it over the network. An air-gapped backup is what this is known as.
The technique used to verify backups is only as good as the process used to check them. To begin, backups must be checked on a daily basis. Check for problems and correct them as quickly as feasible. There should be none at all. Second, execute restoration tests at regular, repeating periods to ensure that you can restore data from your backups.
Veeam sees its 3-2-1-1-0 rule as a crucial best practise for enterprises trying to maintain great service levels while protecting against data loss, as the leader in backup, recovery, and data management solutions that deliver Modern Data Protection.
