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Back-up solutions key to fighting downtime - expert

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Johannesburg - Ransomware attacks and hardware failures cost companies over R13.2bn in 2016. This caused major reputational damage, spurring local always-on businesses to implement shutdown prevention solutions. 

Aptronics Engineer and solutions expert Johan Grove, who became the first Veeam Certified Architect in South Africa, said having to follow a recovery process becomes tedious for the always-on business which cannot afford any downtime.

“In the digital age at any given moment we can experience a shutdown which will interfere with the company’s operations, calling for a modern data centre with high speed recovery to avoid data loss and complete visibility,” Grove told Fin24. 

“Many IT professionals need to be upskilled in order to stay relevant and competitive in the industry,” he added. 

Grove said the heavy reliance of businesses on IT means losing IT systems or data can cause them to shut down if they cannot restore their services quickly and without losing any data. 

A British Airways IT meltdown earlier this year cost the company £80m.

Virus outbreaks and hardware failures are seen as one of the main threats facing companies. 

Grove said hardware failures on production storage can leave a company without any IT services for days or even weeks if there is no proper backup solution in place. 

Many companies use disk-based backup solutions which can also get encrypted by ransomware, leaving the company no way to restore its data without paying the ransom. 

“Using Veeam and a disk-based backup solution like Exagrid will prevent ransomware from encrypting your backups, allowing you to restore your systems quickly and effortlessly in the case of virus outbreaks or systems failure due to hardware failures and human error,” he told Fin24.

“Apart from the financial losses the biggest threat is the reputational damage occurred during downtime. Customers that experience no service during downtime will move to the competition and publish their bad experiences on social media,” he added. 

Grove said businesses must test their backups on a monthly or weekly basis to ensure that they can restore their data timeously in case of disaster. 

“Companies should also keep their anti-virus solutions up to date and patch their systems in a timely fashion to ensure they will be protected during virus outbreaks,” he told Fin24. 

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