Data Backup: Challenges and Best Practices for Organizations

This report delves into the critical aspects of data backup for organizations. It begins by identifying the core issues, such as manual backups, slow restores, and the risks associated with data loss and limited storage capacity. The report then explores various solutions, including encryption techniques like 256-bit AES, and the 2-3-1 backup rule, which involves multiple backup copies across different storage mediums, with one stored off-site. It emphasizes the importance of regular audit programs and cloud storage solutions for data management and security. Furthermore, the report discusses off-site storage strategies, including the use of optical storage, magnetic tapes, and remote backup services. It highlights measures like data encryption, electronic verification, and the importance of third-party response services to ensure the security of off-site backups. The report concludes by underscoring the importance of data backup as a crucial element for business continuity and data security, recommending data encryption for enhanced protection.

Running head: DATA BACK-UP
Data Back-up
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Issue of Securing Backups...............................................................................................................2
Backup Media Storage.....................................................................................................................2
Off-Site Storage of Backups............................................................................................................2
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................2
References........................................................................................................................................2

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Introduction
The purpose of this report is to explain the issues and related to measures that most of the
organization are facing today related to the data back-up. Technology has changed the life living
of the individuals and information technology is playing very vital role in enhancing the
operational activities and data storage for the organizations. However, back-up is an option that
should be concerned while it comes to the security of data and information in an organization.
Issue of Securing Backups
There are many issues being faced by organization while backing up the data, which
includes the following:
Manual backups: Often this job is given to the MD or office admin who are not very
qualified but are motivated to keep storage. There might be a situation raised of human errors
and even are not able to restore the data when the matter comes to data loss (Ramachandran &
Chan, 2016).
Untested and Slow Restores: Most of the storage systems those are being used to keep
backup are often suffering from restores speeds and these restores systems are very rarely tested
and also does not have any restore SLA place.
Business risk due to data loss, Scalability due to limited storage, Damage because of
getting old are some of the greatest concerns while considering the issues related to the data
backup issues.

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Backup Media Storage
There are many ways through which data back-up security can be enhanced among which
some of the important aspects are firstly, using encryption; the encryption is a technology that
overwrites a unique code over the data and the files and for decoding the encryption a
cryptographic key is needed. Encrypting the data with 256-bit AES at minimum could be helpful
in ensuring the data backup security (Louie, Mandese & Pacheco, 2017). Secondly, following 2-
3-1 backup rule that includes three backup copies by the organization across different storage
mediums, with one stored off-site. Regular audit program is another important aspect that will be
helpful in ensuring that all the processes and encryptions are working good and accordingly.
Another effective aspect could be cloud storage, as this will help in management of data and data
backup by third party. Cloud services will help the companies to be completely relied on the
service provider for ensuring the security of data (Park et al., 2017).
Off-Site Storage of Backups
Data is generally transported using optical storage or magnetic tapes or by using remote
backup services known as e vaulting. Online software for web-based offsite data tracking,
regular auditing, response services from third party, securing the vaults with data encryption, and
electronic verification for the credentials are some of the important measures that could be
helpful in ensuring the off-site backups (Wang et al., 2016).
Conclusion
Objectives stated above can be helpful in stating that data backup could be the last and
the important aspect for any organization during the situation of data loss or data breach. Secuing

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the backup data is as important as securing the data and information saved in the database. Data
encryption could be recommended for the advanced security of the backup data.

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References
Louie, T. J., Mandese, E. N., & Pacheco, J. F. (2017). U.S. "Raid logical stripe backup to non-
volatile memory in response to raid storage device media errors." U.S. Patent 9,588,857,
issued March 7, 2017.
Park, D., Fan, Z., Nam, Y. J., & Du, D. H. (2017). A Lookahead Read Cache: Improving Read
Performance for Deduplication Backup Storage. Journal of Computer Science and
Technology, 32(1), 26-40.
Ramachandran, M., & Chang, V. (2016). Towards performance evaluation of cloud service
providers for cloud data security. International Journal of Information
Management, 36(4), 618-625.
Wang, Y., Huang, W., Luo, S., & Yu, H. (2016, December). Fast off-site backup and recovery
system for HDFS. In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Information
and Network Security (pp. 19-23). ACM.