The data is gold. But it’s also under constant threat. From cyberattacks to hardware failure, the risks are real and growing. Traditional backups, once seen as a safety net, often fall short in today’s dynamic environments. That’s where cloud backup acts as a modern insurance policy for your business data. Today cloud backup is secure, scalable, and always on.
At Interscale, we see how vital cloud backup is for our clients. We help companies with cloud backup, especially those juggling compliance, remote teams, or large volumes of critical data. This is why, if you’re looking at what makes a cloud backup strategy and best practices, this guide is the perfect place to start.
What Is Cloud Backup?
Cloud backup, sometimes called online or remote backup, is all about creating a secure, off-site copy of your data. Once stored in a cloud provider’s infrastructure, it’s available for fast recovery if disaster hits.
The benefits of cloud backup solutions speak for themselves:
- Enhanced Security
- Scalability
- Cost-Effectiveness
- Remote Access
- Disaster Recovery
Why You Should Backup to the Cloud
Simply put, cloud backup offers distinct advantages over local backup and traditional offsite backup. Let’s break down it here:
- Location and Disaster Resilience: The risky. Fires, floods, or theft can wipe out everything in one go. Cloud backups, stored offsite in secure data centres, sidestep that entirely.
- Remote Access: With more teams working across different sites or remotely, cloud backup offers the flexibility local systems simply can’t match. No VPN setups or drives to physically retrieve.
- Cost and Scalability: Expanding local storage means buying more gear. Cloud solutions scale instantly, and you only pay for what you use.
- Management Load: Cloud backup services like ours at Interscale reduce internal IT workloads. We manage patching, monitoring, and compliance, so your team doesn’t have to.
Of course, local backup can be faster to restore in some cases. That’s why many businesses follow the 3-2-1 rule; three copies, two types, one offsite. Cloud backup covers the one that saves you when it matters most.
How Cloud Backup Works
The process is straightforward but highly automated by specialized cloud backup software. AvePoint, Veeam, or Acronis powers these processes. Here’s how it plays out:
- Setup: A cloud backup agent is installed or integrated into your infrastructure.
- Data Selection: You decide what gets backed up—specific folders, full systems, and databases.
- Pre-Processing: Compression and deduplication kick in, making backups efficient. Everything is encrypted before it even leaves your network.
- Transfer: Encrypted data travels via secure protocols (like HTTPS) to the cloud backup provider’s remote storage—possibly split across multiple regions for redundancy.
- Automation: Scheduling kicks in—hourly, daily, or real-time backups based on your business rhythm.
- Monitoring & Recovery: A cloud dashboard helps you track backup health and trigger restores when needed.
Cloud Backup Best Practices
The best practices below ensure your backups are useful when you need them most. These best practices make online backup a solid part of your disaster recovery plan. Ignoring these can mean nasty surprises later.
Choose the Right Software and Provider
Choosing a cloud backup solutions provider makes a real difference. Because not all providers are created equal. You need a partner who understands local compliance, delivers strong encryption, and has a track record of reliability.
You want someone with proven experience, top-notch security, and who understands the local landscape, especially Australian data sovereignty laws.
Encrypt Sensitive Data Before Upload
Even if the provider encrypts your data, encrypt it yourself too before uploading. Your sensitive data should be encrypted before it ever leaves your systems (client-side encryption), remain encrypted during transmission, and stay encrypted when stored (at-rest encryption).
For maximum security, managing your own keys (BYOK) puts you fully in charge of confidentiality. This means only your authorized people can decrypt the data, even if someone somehow accessed the backup files at the provider’s end.
Test Your Restores
Regularly test your recovery processes to ensure they work as expected. So, run regular restore tests at full systems and applications. Effective testing means simulating real recovery scenarios: restoring individual files, entire servers, applications, and databases.
Each test should verify data integrity and measure recovery time against your objectives. We see many organizations discover backup failures only when they desperately need to recover. By then, it’s too late. Regular testing catches issues before they become crises.
Set Versioning and Retention Rules
Don’t keep every version forever. Define policies for what to keep, how long, and why. Because you need to control storage costs while ensuring compliance and recovery needs.
Versioning means keeping multiple copies of your data from different points in time. Retention policies decide how long you keep those versions before they’re automatically deleted.
Integrate Cloud Backup Into Disaster Recovery
Cloud backups should be baked into your broader disaster recovery strategy. This means:
- Defining clear procedures for how backups will be used in various scenarios
- Ensuring backup RTOs and RPOs align with business continuity requirements
- Documenting step-by-step recovery processes
- Potentially using the cloud environment itself for disaster recovery (DRaaS).
Self-Managed vs Managed Cloud Backup Services
When you dive into cloud backup, you generally have two ways to go: manage it all yourself, or get a managed service where a provider handles the heavy lifting. What’s best depends on your team’s skills, time, budget, and how much control you want versus how much hassle you can tolerate.
Self-managed cloud backup gives you full control. Of course, you need deep technical expertise. You’ll need to manage everything. You license the cloud backup software. Then use storage from public clouds, like Azure Cloud backup or Google Cloud backup storage. Then, your team does everything else in the best practices above. This suits some enterprise IT teams with niche needs and time to spare.
Managed cloud backup, like the one we provide at Interscale, lifts the burden. We handle the tech, the compliance, and the maintenance. All while keeping you in the loop. All based on your business needs. You get expert eyes ensuring things are done right. Security and compliance help are usually included. Costs are predictable. Usually faster to get going. Dedicated support when you need it.
In truth, many organisations find IT cloud backup providers more cost-efficient in the long run. Less risk, more uptime, and fewer internal distractions. Because, with IT getting more complex, having experts handle your backups just makes sense for a lot of folks. It lets your team focus on what drives your business forward.
Your Next Steps
Cloud backup is part of modern resilience. But getting the best cloud backup means more than buying software. You need the right setup, strong encryption, regular testing, and clear recovery planning. So, if you’re based in Australia and want clarity on how to protect your systems, our team at Interscale is ready to help. Book your schedule in our Calendly here. Whether you’re weighing managed vs self-managed options or want a second opinion on your backup strategy, we’ll meet you where you’re at.
