EDITOR’S QUESTION
A RECENT STUDY BY
REGUS FOUND THAT
REMOTE WORKING IS ON
THE RISE IN AFRICA. WHAT
TECHNOLOGIES WILL
CIOS NEED TO UTILISE TO
ACCOMMODATE THIS
NEW ENVIRONMENT OF
DIGITAL NOMADS?
Excerpt from Redstor’s blog: ‘How
Cloud Backup Can Support Businesses
Who Utilise Remote Workers’
M
any businesses are evolving
away from the traditional
approach of office-based
workers to remote models that see
employees working from home or on the
move. For many organisations, there can
be benefits gained from remote working,
from increased worker productivity to
reduced levels of stress. With technology
connecting more people and increasing
accessibility, the future is likely to be built
around remote businesses and using
more cloud technologies and having to
backup and protect more data.
IT challenges facing
remote businesses
There are still IT problems facing remote
businesses. The problems associated
with running a remote business are
costly for both the business and its
reputation. Cloud backup can help
address these problems. One of the
main problems of running a remote
business is that there is an increased
chance of business data being lost such
as losing a laptop. Lost laptops are a
billion-dollar business problem. The loss
of an expensive piece of kit is potentially
compounded by the loss of the sensitive
data residing on it. Cloud backup gives
you greater security when this happens.
Because your data is stored in the
cloud, you can access it no matter what
happens to your machine.
In addition to this, another problem
facing remote business is that there
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is an increase in recovery time, this is
costly for business. Cloud backup can
help address this problem. For a recovery
from tape, an operator would need to
recall the tape, load it, locate the data
and recover the data. Conversely, file
recovery from cloud storage is faster; it
doesn’t require physical transport from
the off-site location, tape handling or
seek time. Files to be recovered are
located and streamed over the WAN
connection, saving time and eliminating
the need for a local tape infrastructure.
Another problem facing remote
businesses is that there is a relatively
large cost associated with hosting
backups; both hidden costs and explicit
costs. Cloud backup can help address
this problem. Cloud backup provides
scalability with capital savings for
businesses. Businesses can leverage the
scalability of a third-party cloud provider
without the upfront capital expenditure.
In fact, the pay-as-you-go model
significantly reduces the procurement
and provisioning headaches for backup.
This approach allows for predictable
management of capacity growth and
operational costs.
Remote businesses would also face the
problem of ensuring that their backups are
reliable and secure. Cloud backup can help
address these problems. Cloud providers
utilise state-of-the-art technology, such
as disk-based backup, compression,
encryption, data deduplication and a
wide array of other features. In addition
to the security that accompanies their
certification, many providers offer 24/7
monitoring, management, and reporting
– features and capabilities that may
not be afforded by many companies
otherwise. Furthermore, there would be no
need to worry about upgrades, migrations
or technology obsolescence; the burden
of the backup infrastructure lies with the
service provider.
IT best practice for
remote workers
• Set data protection policies for
remote workers. As an organisation,
there should be policies and
processes in place to ensure that
data is managed and protected in
the correct way. This may differ for
remote workers, partially due to the
way in which they can access or store
data and because they may create
different data (or formats) to their
office counterparts. Ensuring data
protection policies cover remote
workers will save time and money if
data is lost and needs to be recovered.
• Regularly audit data created by
remote workers. Clean up and
remove unneeded data (data life
cycle management); this data may be
more susceptible to viruses as workers
are likely to be accessing data from
more remote sources. This will also
improve the efficiency of the remote
worker’s machine.
• Ensure all data is being backed up.
Companies currently need to ensure
that there is the correct belt and
braces security around their data.
One way to do this is to ensure that
there are regular, secure backups of
the data, preferably off-site in case
of disaster, as well as multiple copies
of the backup data, to increase built-
in redundancy.
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