No matter what kind of business you run, you traffic in a lot of data. You handle sensitive details like a customer’s full name, address, and credit card details. You may even have information about dates of birth, children, and more. The more personal your service, the more information you are likely to have.
Besides your customer’s details, you also have to maintain a lot of information about your own business, including your bank accounts, employee details, tax returns, and more. All of this information is a treasure trove for thieves who may want to attack your business, assume your customers’ identities, or just steal money from your business or your customers.
You must keep your data safe to protect your business. Not only must you protect your business secrets, such as your product specifications or your patents, but you must also protect your assets. Your customers are your assets, as well, and if you are responsible for letting their data gets stolen, they will stop doing business with you and you will lose a lot more potential customers.
Fortunately, there are a number of options for keeping your data safe. Here are a few you should explore:
Network-Attached Devices
You may not have the capacity on your network to store all the information you need to store. Or maybe you just want to have a backup for storing the data that is already on your network. A network-attached device like a high-density JBOD will give you the space you need to store whatever data you need to store. The more JBODs you have, the more storage capacity you will have. How many JBODs you can have just depends on your budget and your network capacity for hosting them.
Server
Do you have a network of your own? A computer server should be a part of that. A computer server is one that transmits data from the Internet to your computers. When you sign up for a web host, you are signing up for access to that company’s server. By having a server of your own, you are creating space in the cloud to store your own data.
You must put the right security measures in place if you are hosting your own server. Otherwise, you are creating a nice, little treasure box that will draw in thieves easily. Your data will be a sitting duck, waiting for anyone to take it.
Cloud Security
You don’t have to host your own server to take advantage of data storage in the cloud. Many companies offer cloud storage with their own security in place. The advantage here is that you don’t have to pay for your own server and you don’t have to worry about keeping your security tight. You can turn that responsibility over to a company that is experienced in keeping data secure and that has the right tools and experts to keep security tight.
Computer and Desktop Storage
Of course, you need to be able to access your data locally, as well. Otherwise, what happens when your server is down? Or when maintenance is being performed on the cloud? You need to have fast access to data at any time. Instruct employees to store files that they are currently working on or will need frequently on their local computer. Additional desktop storage can be provided in the form of an external hard drive that plugs in through a USB connection. You can get a terabyte or more of data through an external hard drive, which should be enough to accommodate the needs of any employee.
Flash Drives
Flash drives let employees store data temporarily and to transport it between devices. For example, they can save a document at work and then take it home to work from their personal computer. When allowing flash drives for temporary storage, it is important to advise employees about the dangers of viruses. It is easy for an employee to infect your whole network by saving a document from their home device that is riddled with viruses. Be sure that you have a strong anti-virus program installed a good tech team on the payroll.
Use multiple sources of data storage to keep all your important information safe. You never know when one will fail or become compromised. By using multiple sources, you protect all your data and maintain continuous operations and customer service.
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