Small Biz Matters – a half hour program each week where you can work ON your business rather than IN it.with Alexi Boyd from Boyd Office Management ServicesDate: 17 April 2018
The Cloud. We get it, we use it. We count on it.
Every day when operating as a small businesses we rely heavily on the cloud and internet storage. We assume it's safe, secure and backed up SOMEWHERE. We assume it's available anytime and reliable and we assume the content we produce is ours to do with what we wish. But we’re not careful enough.
But like all things (except death and taxes as they say) you can’t be sure of it. You need to be in control with this extremely important tool of your trade. What if you can’t find an important document? What if the storage you relied on suddenly wasn’t there? What if you never backed up?
Well today we have on the show another great expert; Gunnar Habitz to help us navigate through the complexities of Cloud storage but like always on Small Biz we’ll make sure you have practical strategies to ensure you take control.
Welcome to the show Gunnar.
Topics we’ll be covering:
Cloud overall
Cloud storage vs. cloud backup comparing different tools
How does a typical IT setup of Small Biz Owners look like
Who should provide help
How long to keep data
How and how often to get data back
Why isn’t all safe in the cloud
Why storing in Australia is important (Dropbox stores in the US)
The CEO view: Business Continuity and Risk Management instead of just backup
Cyber insurance
Ransomware attacks
Example case of a disaster that really happened
What about the new “Notifiable Data Breach” law in Australia
What to backup how
Practical tips
How to get attention for the topic
Cloud overall (see graphs at the bottom of this document)
Benefits for customers: agility, flexibility, choice, PAYG
Public, Private, Hybrid cloud
Cloud is a journey instead of destination
Fear, trust, proof, procedures, risk management
Cloud storage vs. cloud backup comparing different tools
Cloud synchronisation services: Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive
Many of them don’t have versioning (Dropbox EVH has 120 days)
What’s deleted on one device gets deleted on another as well upon connection
Hard to get anything back from the cloud sync providers
Proper cloud backup provides versioning in all possible local retention possibilities and clients can get back their data as part of the service by themselves of their partner
How does a typical IT setup of Small Biz Owners look like
On-premises: notebook(s), printing, potentially a server for files or databases
Cloud services like Office 365, Google G Suite, AWS, Xero/MYOB, CRM, specific apps
Who should provide help
Managed Service Providers (MSPs) deliver IT as a service based on SMB demands including backup, but also on-premise infrastructure from capex to opex
The Small Biz owner should focus on the business outcome, not on technology
How long to keep data?
Legal companies often require 7 years, some even longer
That makes moving between different backup technologies rather difficult
How and how often to get data back?
User can retrieve data by themselves or via partner
Restoring should be free as part of the backup pricing, not to pay extra for every restore
According to a worldwide study of 2016, about 6% of restored data comes from accidently deleted files
Database operation restoration is slightly less
Why isn’t all safe in the cloud
Tricky balance: hard to get anything deleted when needed (e.g. wrong posting) while on the other side hard to find what has been there when needed
Cloud sync providers run their own backups to provide their service with best possible availability rather than helping clients getting it back (even against $)
Why storing in Australia is important
Many industries require data to be stored in Oz like healthcare for legal reasons
Even NZ companies often cannot store their data in Australia
The marketing departments of those companies often store data on Dropbox (no-go!)
Storing data encrypted in the US is possible, but NSA might want to see on the way back
Dropbox stores in the US for the premium experience vs. local law, but how to proof?
Microsoft runs Azure in Australia and not in New Zealand (yet)
The CEO view: Business Continuity and Risk Management instead of just backup
Worldwide standard ISO 31000 has been created by Australia/NZ initially (2004)
Provides principles and generic guidelines on risk management
Example: 6% of data restored * cost of getting it back (but how to estimate?)
Cyber Insurance
Some see backup like an insurance, but the reality is different
The cyber insurance covers for lost revenue in a data loss, but doesn’t get the data back
The backup providers gets the data back, but doesn’t cover lost revenue
It is a complementing solution usually not offered together
Ransomware attacks
Talking about a concrete example
Can arrive per email or even inside an internet connected printer or scanner
Example case of a disaster that really happened
Usually we talk about statistics that 60% of SMB companies go out of businesses after a severe disaster within a year, 80% don’t survive the second year
Spoken to a victim of a real story at the Australian Information Security Association (AISA)
What about the new “Notifiable Data Breach” law in Australia
In place since 22 February 2018 to report data breaches within 30 days
Most often data breaches haven’t been made public not to destroy brand value
Fines now official: $360K for individual and $1.8M for companies if not reported on time
Many IT resellers told at an ARN event that their customers are not ready yet
European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) from 25 May goes even beyond, it aims primarily to give control back to citizens and residents over their personal data
View of the Ransomware programmers: “if you don’t pay me in Bitcoin, then I will breach your data and force you to pay the fines”
What to backup how
Different areas: Cloud Backup, Cloud DR, Endpoint Backup, Cloud to Cloud
On-premise server into the cloud using leading software such as Veeam
Some services are already in the cloud such as Exchange into Office 365
Even Office 365 is not covered by backup, therefore it needs e.g. SkyKick
Practical tips
Forget about the rotating external HDDs which often have unencrypted, easily visible files in it
Most important is redundancy, even use RAID 1 in a NAS to ensure availability
Guidance rule of 3-2-1: 3 copies of the data, 2 kind of media, 1 offsite location
Think to fail: what happens if building gone, NAS drive stolen, computer hacked
Think to be back fast not to lose revenue and keep serving customers: use Disaster-Recovery-as-a-Service
Use risk management to calculate the probability with the options
Making sure you can not only save but extract the data
How to get attention for the topic
Turning from backup (like dentist) into business continuity (winning smile)
Business consultants often convince owners better than box moving IT resellers
“World Backup Day” every 31 March (even backward) to raise attention to the topic
Software vendor Veeam has even taken the 30 March as “Availability Day” to make the point not “you don’t have backup” but rather “you want to aim for availability”
To find out more, go to their website: www.keepitsafe.com or contact [email protected]
