8 benefits of managed backup services
As the global economy becomes increasingly integrated and reliant on digital technologies, managed backup service providers play a crucial role in many organizations' digital operations. More data and critical business systems are stored in the cloud than ever and having secure and reliable backup solutions in place has become vital to ensure continuity and prevent data loss.
This is where managed backup services come in, industry providers that help all organizations stay protected in the event of a data loss incident. With World Backup Day on March 31st, it’s a great time to review your organization's backup and disaster recovery strategies.
If your organization is considering a managed backup service provider, understanding their benefits can help you make an informed decision. Let’s explore eight key benefits of managed backup services and how they play a huge role in the success and safety of your business.
What are managed backup services?
Managed backup services provide organizations with the technology, processes, and expertise they need to protect their data, systems, and applications. These services can:
- Back up data on-site or in the cloud
- Provide secure storage and access to data
- Protect systems from malicious attacks
- Enable organizations to recover quickly after a disaster
Your general suite of managed backup services includes items like data encryption and replication, disaster recovery planning, and cloud integration. All of these help ensure that organizations’ data is secure and accessible when needed while reducing the risk of data loss.
Managed backup service providers offer these services as well as a high level of expertise and technical support for their clients. Combined, these enable organizations to focus on their core business operations while relying on their managed backup service provider to keep their data and systems secure.
With this said, what are some of the specific ways these benefits play out?
Managed backup service benefits
Managed backup services offer many benefits to organizations that need secure and reliable data backup solutions. When considering how your organization can benefit from a managed backup service provider, you should consider the following eight benefits:
1. Cost savings
Building and maintaining an in-house backup infrastructure often requires a significant upfront investment, and continual operating costs related to staffing and maintaining the system. According to a recent report from Accenture, 57% of all IT resources are spent on maintaining systems. Organizations can sidestep these expenses with subscription-based cloud backups, which reduce overall IT costs and minimize downtime.
Outsourcing data management provides the biggest cost savings to growing companies with evolving needs. By choosing a managed backup service, businesses can scale their backup needs up or down to meet their current requirements, avoiding the cost of over-provisioning for one-time disasters.
To learn more about how SaaS companies can leverage managed backup service providers to save on costs, download our SaaS Data Backup eBook, SaaS Data Backup: Everything You Need to Know (and Do) About It, today.
2. Additional security and protection
Outsourcing data management provides an additional layer of state-of-the-art security that may otherwise be too expensive for an organization to implement on its own. Managed backup service providers offer data encryption, replication, and secure cloud storage capabilities that ensure compliance with industry regulations and protect data from unauthorized access.
Many services use multiple data centers across various geographical locations. Decentralization provides an added layer of protection against data loss due to natural disasters or other unforeseen events while ensuring that organizations can quickly recover data in an emergency.
3. Operational flexibility
Managed backup services can be tailored to individual organizations' needs and preferences, allowing users to customize their backup solutions to suit their specific operational requirements.
Organizations can choose from a range of services, including on-demand or scheduled backups, data deduplication, and retention options tailored to the business's specific needs. This brings a level of scalability that allows organizations to quickly increase or decrease the amount of data they need to backup, without making significant investments in hardware or software. Scalability is essential for organizations that may experience rapid growth or shifts in data storage requirements, as it allows them to adjust their backup strategies quickly with minimal issues.
Managed backup service providers also offer a range of monitoring and management services to help organizations stay on top of their backup and disaster recovery operations. Most services include regular reporting and analysis of backup data, as well as real-time monitoring of backup jobs and alerts to potential issues, helping organizations identify and resolve any problems that may arise.
4. Shorter downtimes
Data loss can have a profoundly negative impact on an organization's operations, leading to long periods of downtime and disruption. Managed backup services allow organizations to quickly restore data in a disaster, helping to reduce downtimes and operational disruptions.
Backup solutions often allow for quick and easy restores from the cloud, with configurable restore points that can be as granular as individual files and folders. This ensures data restoration is an easy and straightforward process, allowing organizations to get back up and running quickly in the event of a breach.
According to BusinessWire, 30% of outages in 2022 lasted more than 24 hours, up from 8% in 2017. As more organizations integrate cloud services, outages are likely to become more frequent. Managed backup services provide a fast and reliable recovery solution that can help minimize an outage's impact on organizational operations.
5. Recovery support
Many organizations struggle to restore systems and data after a breach. Businesses can access a range of recovery support services through managed backup providers, including virtualized servers, technical support teams, and recovery planning.
Recovery planning is essential to ensure organizations can quickly and effectively restore data after a breach. A managed backup provider will help organizations create a comprehensive and detailed recovery plan tailored to the organization's specific needs, helping them ensure data is quickly restored and operations are up and running again.
If you're a managed service provider looking to incorporate backup and disaster recovery into your offerings, check out our webinar, Protecting Your SaaS Data - It's Up to You..
6. Better compliance
Data compliance is a major area of concern for many organizations. Regulatory frameworks like the GDPR stipulate that organizations must protect user data both in transit and at rest, and failure to comply with these regulations can result in hefty fines and reputational damage.
As of 2022, the GDPR has imposed over 2.3 billion euros in fines, and with the implementation of new regulations like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), fines and regulations are likely to become even stricter.
Managed backup services provide organizations with the tools they need to meet their compliance requirements. Services often include encryption, deduplication, and retention options tailored to the organization's specific needs, helping them ensure user data is protected and secure.
7. Resource conservation
Implementing an in-house backup solution can be a costly and time-consuming process, requiring significant investment in hardware and staff. Organizations can streamline the process and conserve resources by outsourcing tasks like data management and recovery to third parties.
Properly allocating resources is critical to successfully scaling a business, and managed backup services can help enterprises achieve greater efficiency without compromising security or performance. The ConnectWise blog is a great resource for more insights on scaling your BCDR business.
8. Expert support
Finally, managed backup services can provide organizations with access to the expertise and resources of a dedicated service provider. Many managed backup services offer 24/7 customer support, allowing businesses to get the help they need when they need it.
This can be especially beneficial for organizations new to backup and disaster recovery, as having access to a knowledgeable provider can make it easier to get up and running quickly.
In some cases, you can bundle your backup support with other features like a network operations center (NOC) to address multiple needs at the same time. Our webinar, BDR + NOC: Backup Your Data Better, speaks to how these 2 particular solutions interact. In addition, options like the ConnectWise partner program can help MSPs and their clients accelerate their backup and data recovery regimens.
How MSPs can implement managed backup services for their clients
Managed service providers (MSPs) are ideally suited to provide managed backup services to their clients. By leveraging their expertise and resources, MSPs can help organizations implement comprehensive backup and disaster recovery plans that meet their organization's specific needs.
Being able to effectively communicate these benefits is essential for growing an MSP’s client base. To learn more about the benefits of disaster and disaster recovery solutions, view our demo of ConnectWise BCDR.