The Right Managed Service Provider for Data Storage

Not all off-site backup providers are the same.  There are hundreds of managed service providers in today’s market to handle your sensitive data from basement bargains to world class facilities.  Understanding your needs and what the competition offers is absolutely vital to making sure you get not only the best bang for the buck but to make sure your company’s data is safe.  After all, your data, and keeping it safe is the reason you may find yourself in search of a provider in the first place. Unfortunately it usually takes one disaster or complete data loss for companies to then find a secure home for their priceless files and by then it is too late.

Options to Consider in an Offsite Data Storage Company

When properly choosing an off-site backup provider a number of things should be considered.  Does the provider offer a service level agreement for uptime and restoral availability? Do they support all the operating systems and data bases in your environment?  Do they have multiple data centers?  How far apart are the data centers?  Are they susceptible to disaster themselves?  Where do they send your data?  How many copies of each file do they store?  Do they store disk-to-disk?  Do they offer guaranteed response time?  Do they have access to your data (hopefully not)?  Do they meet today’s business compliances such as HIPAA, PCI, SOX etc? It is imperative that your provider offer support on the install to make sure your jobs are setup properly. This is especially critical to make sure your data can be recovered properly in the event of a loss. Does the company offer email notification in the event you are not backing up? Asking these kinds of questions and making sure the process involved with backing up and restoring is manageable will ensure you are getting the right kind of service and storage that fits your needs.

Getting the Best Managed Service Provider to Manage Your Data

A good backup provider should really understand your environment and make sure they are always in a position to recover your data, no matter what happens to you or them.  Chances are if the provider does not offer the ones mentioned above, they may not be the most secure and reliable option out there. Understandably price is always a concern but the bottom line is – you get what you pay for.   Most companies cannot put a price tag on the value of their data, can you?