Cloud Backup Services

What are cloud backup services?

Cloud backup copies your business data over the internet to storage in a secure data center, away from your office. If something happens to your building or your network, the offsite copy is still there.

Cloud backup works best alongside a local backup, not instead of one. A common rule of thumb is 3-2-1: three copies of your data, on two different kinds of storage, with one copy offsite.

The local copy gives you fast restores for everyday mistakes. The cloud copy covers the bad days.

Why does a Boston business need an offsite backup?

Because a backup sitting in the same room as your server can be lost in the same event. Fire, water, theft and power problems do not spare the backup drive on the shelf.

Ransomware is the bigger reason today. Attackers increasingly target backups as part of an attack, and they look specifically for exposed backup shares, unsecured NAS devices, poorly protected local backup servers and incomplete cloud recovery setups.

A properly separated cloud copy, with its own credentials and multi-factor authentication, is much harder for an intruder to reach. For even stronger protection, see our page on immutable, ransomware-resistant backup.

What should a data backup plan for a small business cover?

A data backup plan should cover every place your business keeps information people would miss, not just the main server. The gaps are usually in the places nobody thought about.

• Servers and shared file folders
• Computers where staff save work locally
• Microsoft 365 email, OneDrive and SharePoint, covered by Microsoft 365 backup
• Accounting data such as QuickBooks, Sage or Microsoft Dynamics GP
• Line-of-business applications and their databases
• How often each one is backed up, how long copies are kept, and who is alerted when a job fails

Backups should be encrypted in transit and in storage, especially for firms with obligations under HIPAA or Massachusetts 201 CMR 17.00.

How do you know a cloud backup will actually restore?

You test it. A backup that has never been restored is a hope, not a plan.

Backup is a core part of our IT support. We verify that backup jobs actually run and captured what you expect, and we run quarterly test restores for clients who include them in their plan.

Testing also shows how long a restore takes. Pulling a whole server back over the internet can be slow, which is exactly why we pair the cloud copy with a local one for quick recoveries.

Cloud backup vs. backup and disaster recovery

Cloud backup is one piece of a larger recovery setup. It answers the question “is there a safe copy offsite?”

Our backup and disaster recovery service covers the whole picture: recovery time and recovery point targets, the order systems come back, and a written recovery plan. If you want to plan how your people keep working during an outage, see business continuity planning.

How we work with your business

We are a family-run IT company at 335 Auburn Street in Newton, serving businesses across Greater Boston since 1978. We review your current backups during a site survey, set up and check backup jobs remotely, and come on-site when hardware is involved.

During the survey we look at your servers, storage and backup systems, network and security configuration, then give you a clear, no-obligation plan.