When coming up with a backup solution, focus on finding an option that reduces your client’s downtime and risk of data loss. Your clients rely on you to keep their data properly protected, but you may be making major mistakes with your current backup strategy. As a result, your clients could get burned! The next item on our MSP Summer BuckIT List will help you and your clients avoid that backup burn: introduce business continuity as a proactive and preventative solution. Take a look at the SlideShare below to see which five mistakes MSPs make with their backup plans and the impact these oversights have on your small-to-medium-sized clients.

2. Meet Your Client: !
Stanley SMB
He is highly anticipating summer, and has been searching for the
perfect BDR solution that reduces downtime and data loss.
What Stanley doesn’t know is that these top 5 backup mistakes you’re making can
potentially ruin his summer! Follow Stanley along his journey…

3. Mistake #1 – No Backup
Uh oh! Your client, Stanley SMB didn’t
have a backup solution in place and
was dead in the water when hit with a
business-crippling flood. Unfortunately,
since you failed to provide a backup
solution, Stanley’s hardware has
failed, and he is unable to recover any
of his valuable data. In effect, he’s
been completely burned and there’s no
extinguishing those flames.

4. ¤ Point 1
¤ Point 2
¤ Point 3
Your clients turn to you for
the complete protection of
their data. Without any
backup coverage, they’re
left completely helpless in
the event of a flood, fire,
earthquake, or other
natural disaster.
DID YOU KNOW?
• 30% of companies report that
they still do not have a disaster
recovery program in place.
• 40% of businesses do not
reopen after a disaster, and
another 25% fail within one year
according to FEMA
• Survival rate for companies
without a disaster recovery plan
is less than 10%

5. Mistake # 2 – Failing to Test
Your Backup Solution
You’re providing Stanley SMB with a
simple backup solution, so he’s out
playing a round of tennis because he
thinks his business is covered. However,
a disgruntled employee who was let go
last week decides to completely wipe the
system and all critical files! Stanley SMB
is depending on the backup solution you
provided him, but there’s one problem…
the data can’t be restored because you
failed to test your backup solution! With
this tragic mistake, your client is burned
unexpectedly, and loses the match to
severe data loss.

6. Sure, you’re giving them some coverage, but by failing to test your solution you didn’t
ensure its reliability. If your client’s data isn’t backed up properly, the result can be major
data loss that cannot be recovered, which is a fatal blow to any business.
DID YOU KNOW?
¤ According to Advanced Data Recovery, U.S. businesses lose over $12 billion per year
because of data loss
¤ 34% of businesses that back up their data never test their back-ups. Of those businesses
that do, 77% are found not to work
¤ By testing your backup and recovery plan, MSPs can more confidently promise clients their
desired recovery time objective (RTO), and ensure that they won’t have to pay penalties for
over-promising with an untested RTO estimate.
You were hoping for the best by providing your
client with a simple backup solution.

7. Mistake #3 – Not Having a
Recovery Plan
Stanley SMB decides to lounge by the pool
because he’s confident his business’s data
is secure with the backup solution you are
now providing. He’s so relaxed that when he
receives a call that the servers are down,
he’s not worried. But when Stanley pops out
of the pool an hour later to check his mail,
he's unable to access his company's critical
data and files. Stanley’s backups are safe,
but his productivity plummets as you
scramble to recover his data. He cannot
sustain this unplanned downtime and loses
money fast!

8. On its own, backup will not protect your clients against downtime in the event of a disaster or
hardware failure. Your clients need business operations running 24x7. Even if your data backup
solution has protected their sensitive data, they cannot remain profitable if they're unable to
access and restore it in a time-efficient manner. Data security is only half of the problem. You
also have to protect your clients' bottom lines, and you can't do that without implementing a
disaster recovery strategy.
DID YOU KNOW?
¤ International Data Corp. estimates that companies lose an average of $84,000 for every hour of
downtime. According to Strategic Research, the cost of downtime is estimated at close to
$90,000 per hour.
¤ 93% of companies that lost their data for 10 days or more filed for bankruptcy within one year of
the disaster, and 50% filed for bankruptcy immediately (National Archives & Records
Administration in Washington).
Simply providing backup is only half the solution.

9. While taking a roller-ride along the beach
walkway, Stanley SMB thinks you have him
covered against malicious attacks that could
compromise his network. One of Stanley's
employees falls for a sophisticated phishing
scheme and opens a harmful attachment in an
email. Luckily, you’re able to shut the group of
hackers down before they steal important
business records, however his network is still
corrupted. Also, since your solution only
backed up Stanley’s data once a month, he is
unable to recover those records added after
that restore point. Depending on your Service
Level Agreement (SLA) with Stanley, you
could lose his business all-together. It's also a
lose-lose situation for Stanley because he's
forced to play catch-up and loses productivity.
!Mistake #4: Backing up
Infrequently

10. Disasters don’t follow a schedule, so you need to provide a strong backup platform that
offers flexible data recovery. The key to staying one step ahead is to find a platform that
lets you customize your clients’ individual RTOs, recovery point objectives (RPOs), and
retention points.
DID YOU KNOW?
¤ 2 out of 3 companies feel their data backup and disaster recovery plans have significant
vulnerabilities
¤ Important files should be backed up at minimum once a week, preferably once every 24
hours
¤ More than half (53%) of organizations surveyed revealed they do not conduct daily backups
The longer you wait between data backups, the
more your clients and their records are at risk!

11. Mistake #5 – Having an
Insufficient Data Retention
Policy
Playing volleyball in the sun, Stanley is more
worried about his spike than his retained
data. Unfortunately, when the IRS sends
Stanley an audit request for his past 5 years
of transactional records, he can’t access the
data he needs because you only retained
those records for one year! You didn’t
maintain this essential data for the right
period of time, and now Stanley is stuck in a
sticky situation with only part of the
necessary data he requires!

12. Data backup is important, but the ability to recover that data is equally as important. Your
clients look to you to not only keep their data safe, but also meet the proper data retention
requirements. When deciding on these terms with your client, you should take into
account what’s optimal and cost-effective for their business needs. The best defense
against this backup mistake is to create both long-term and short-term backup policies to
ensure that your client is covered.
DID YOU KNOW?
¤ According to the Gartner Data Center Conference Survey, 50% of organizations struggle
with understanding what aging data is and what data should be discarded.
Sure, space is at a premium, but you can’t just
retain only a few months’ worth of essential data.

13. With pairing BDR and business
continuity, you’ve provided Stanley SMB
with the ideal solution that ensures full
coverage in every situation possible.
Natural disasters? Check. Hardware
failures? Check. Viruses and hackers?
Double check. Even if CryptoWall’s
worst nightmare comes creeping
around Stanley’s business, he’s
completely covered and backed by a
600+ technician Network Operations
Center (NOC)!
The Solution – Fully managed
BDR and Business Continuity

14. Thanks for Viewing!
Sources:
¤ http://www.continuitycentral.com/feature0660.html
¤ http://www.adrdatarecovery.com/data_loss_statistics
¤ http://www.pcsupportgroup.com/blog/data-backup/data-backup-statistics/#sthash.yqqZXYEY.dpuf
¤ http://iosafe.com/industry-stats
¤ http://www.datarecoverylabs.com/how-often-should-you-backup-your-files.html
¤ http://blogs.ironmountain.com/2013/service-lines/data-backup-and-recovery/scary-statistics-on-smb-data-
backup/
Learn the top drivers behind modern
data retention, explore best practices
to help you design and implement
retention policies for your clients, and
more by downloading this eBook! !"