Endpoint vs Shared System Backups for Disaster Recovery

Losing your data can bring your business to a grinding halt. Whether due to natural disasters, cyberattacks, or simple human error, downtime without access to critical information keeps you from serving customers, making sales, and carrying out essential tasks.

That's why having a robust data backup and disaster recovery (DBR) solution in place is a must for any organization. But with endpoint and shared system backups, you have options. Understanding endpoint vs shared system backups will help you choose the right approach to keep your business up and running no matter what happens.

Why Backups Matter?

Let's do a quick thought experiment.

Picture yourself enjoying a sunny day on Miami Beach. You accidentally drop your phone in the ocean, wiping out all your data in one splash. Now imagine that instead of your phone, it was your work laptop holding all of your company's files. Or even worse - the failure of every computer in your office.

Without reliable backups, you'd be facing serious trouble. You would lose access to critical business data like:

• Customer information
• Financial records
• Project files
• Email history
• More

Your operations would grind to a halt.

Backup solutions like DBR prevent this kind of catastrophe. Even if your devices fail, your data is automatically saved to alternate storage. So you can quickly restore information and resume working with minimal downtime.

The High Costs of Data Loss

To put the importance of backups in perspective, let's consider the potential impacts of data loss:

• Revenue losses from downtime - If systems are down, you can't serve customers or complete projects. This directly hits your bottom line.
• Permanent loss of intellectual property - Years of proprietary research, product designs, and other IP could be wiped out forever without backups. This can undermine competitive advantage.
• Reputation damage and loss of customer trust - Data breaches or failures erode confidence in your business. Customers may look elsewhere if you can't safeguard their information.
• Regulatory noncompliance - Depending on your industry, data loss could violate legal retention and privacy mandates, triggering hefty fines.
• Employee productivity declines - Your team wastes time recreating lost data instead of moving initiatives forward. Morale and engagement also suffer.
• Costly data recovery - Professional data recovery services often charge thousands of dollars to attempt to restore lost data. But there's no guarantee of success.

Regular, automated backups essentially inoculate your business from these risks and costs. The upfront investment is minor compared to the enormous expense of recovering from a disaster without backups in place.

Comparing Endpoint Vs Shared System Backups

When designing a DBR strategy, you'll need to choose between endpoint vs shared system backups. What's the difference, and which one is right for your business?

Endpoint Backups

With endpoint backups, data from individual devices like laptops, desktops, and mobile devices is copied to a separate storage location. This could involve an external hard drive, cloud backup service, or file-sharing apps like iCloud.

Pros	Cons
Backs up each device separately	No central access to data
Users can manage their own backups	Manual setup for each endpoint
	No way to access data from other devices

Endpoint backups give users autonomy over protecting their data. This decentralized approach can work for small teams with limited shared resources. However, the lack of central oversight creates potential security and compliance risks for larger organizations.

Employees might neglect to back up their devices properly. If an employee leaves the company, their backups could walk out the door with them unless properly deprovisioned. There's also no easy way to collaborate or share data across the organization.

Shared System Backups

Unlike endpoint backups, shared system backups consolidate data from all connected devices to a centralized location. This gives authorized users access to files from any device with the right permissions.

Pros	Cons
All data accessible from one place	Can be slower with large files
Easy collaboration across company	More complex to set up initially
IT team can manage backups centrally

Shared system backups enhance business continuity and productivity. If an employee is out of the office, work can continue seamlessly because files are accessible from anywhere. No more emailing documents back and forth or deciphering which version is correct.

Central IT oversight also simplifies security patching, access controls, and compliance monitoring. Backup schedules and policies can be standardized across the organization.

The main downside is a slower initial setup. Building out the infrastructure for shared backups requires more planning and upfront investment. Ongoing maintenance is also more complex compared to individual user-managed backups.

Cloud vs. Local: A Balanced Approach

Endpoint and shared system backups can utilize cloud-based or local storage. Most businesses take a hybrid approach for maximum security, speed, and flexibility.

The cloud offers convenient offsite storage that is safe from local disasters like fires or floods. However, for large files, local network backups are much faster, giving you rapid restore times when you need your data ASAP.

By combining cloud and local backup systems, you get the best of both worlds:

• Quick access to critical data
• Offsite copy to guard against localized threats

Here's a closer look at the pros and cons of each model:

Cloud Backups

Storing backups in the cloud has become popular because it simplifies offsite data protection. Benefits include:

• Accessibility from anywhere with an internet connection
• Scalable storage as data grows
• Lower on-site equipment costs
• Added physical security against local disasters
• Potential cost savings compared to on-prem infrastructure

However, cloud backups also come with limitations:

• Dependence on Internet connectivity
• Latency uploading or downloading large datasets
• Recurring subscription fees
• Less control over data security
• Privacy risks if the vendor experiences a breach

Local Backups

Maintaining dedicated backup infrastructure on-prem offers advantages like:

• Faster backup and restore of large files
• Ability to isolate backups on a private network
• Avoid recurring cloud service costs
• Keep data within your systems
• Meet data sovereignty regulations

But local backups have downsides as well:

• Higher upfront investment in backup systems
• Physical risks from fires, floods, or theft
• Lack of offsite redundancy if disaster strikes
• IT staff required for maintenance and monitoring

Customizing Your Backup Plan

Choosing endpoint, shared, cloud, or local backups depends on your specific needs:

• Team size and locations
• Types of data and file sizes
• Security and compliance requirements
• Frequency of data changes

While cloud  backups alone may work for a small remote team, most businesses benefit from a blend of shared local and cloud backups.

Here are some best practices to consider when designing your backup strategy:

• Analyze which data is most critical to back up - Focus on protecting mission-critical systems and information assets first.
• Implement redundancy for high-priority data - Maintain both local and cloud copies of vital data for recovery flexibility.
• Secure backups against unauthorized access - Encrypt data, limit access, and monitor backup systems closely.
• Test backup and recovery procedures - Regularly simulate restores to confirm backups are valid and working as intended.
• Follow the 3-2-1 rule - Keep three copies of data, on two different media types, with one copy offsite.
• Automate backups to simplify - Schedule automatic daily/weekly full and incremental backups for efficiency.
• Monitor backup health - Get alerts for any failure to back up or corrupted backup jobs.
• Retain backup history - Keep previous versions for a window of time to recover older data if needed.
• Consider backup needs across locations - Factor in systems at branch offices, retail sites, and other locations.

The right backup solution keeps your data protected and your business running no matter what life throws your way.

At LK Technologies, our experts can help customize an endpoint and shared system backup plan tailored to your unique requirements. Contact us today to safeguard your data with a sound DBR strategy.