What’s the difference between managed and unmanaged backup?

We all know that backups are important, right? We know if something goes wrong, a backup could save a lot of recovery time and work…and possibly your business. But what is a backup really? The simple answer to that is that it is a copy of your important data. That is essentially it.

But with all of the backup programs out there, it’s easy to get confused on which one is better and why.  I won’t get into that right now as it is beyond the scope of this article but what we will be doing is clarifying the difference between a “managed” and “unmanaged” backup.

What is an Unmanaged Backup?

Unmanaged Backup: the backup software attempts to run and make a backup of your data on its own, without human intervention. It is basically a “best-effort” process. If it works then great, if not, oh well. The good news, no one has to do a thing to make the backup run. The bad news…something could break and leave you without backups for months or years without you knowing it. I’ve seen this many times. I’m onsite with a client, working on a totally different issue but decide (as is my habit) to check on their backups only to find no recent backups have taken place – at all.

So how do you prevent this from happening? Check it! Check the software logs files, check the location that it is backing up to. Unfortunately this task is frequently overlooked. And well, let’s face it, things happen. In a business environment, it gets busy and the backup check routine is set aside for something more urgent at the time. So how do you get around that? Surely there is a better way. This is where a “managed” backup solution steps in.

What is a Managed Backup?

Managed Backup: the software runs automatically and attempts to get a successful backup of your data, but unlike the best effort put forth by the unmanaged backup, a 3rd party is responsible as a managed service for checking backups for you as a client and if a job fails or has any issues, then this team is in charge of proactively reaching out to the client and troubleshooting the issue until a resolution is reached and successful backups are once again taking place. So really, a managed backup solution is everything that the unmanaged solution offers plus the added layer of security and comfort of knowing that your valuable data is safe.

Consequently here at SandStormIT, we recommend this method because we know from experience how important it is to get a good, reliable, stable backup. Have further questions that I didn’t answer in this article? Interested in a managed backup solution? Feel free to give SandStorm IT a call at 901-475-0275.