If you’re thinking about switching to offsite data centres, either congratulations or condolences are in order.
Making this move means you may have seen (or expect to see) aggressive growth in the near future. On the flip side, it’s also possible your company just learned a very expensive lesson through an outage or hack.
In either case, if you’re debating moving your data off-site at some point in the next year, ask yourself these questions.
Have We Landed A Big Client?
One of the leading reasons that a company will start exploring enterprise data centre sourcing solutions is that they are now dealing with enterprise-level clients. These clients come with more complex data and a need for offsite data solutions.
Maybe you have already landed this big client and this is why you’re planning to move your data off-site. Or, you’re looking to the future and you see that you need offsite data storage to land a higher level of client.
You know that you will not even be considered by the big companies if you don’t have the architecture in place to handle and protect their sensitive data. Your bids and RFPs will not be taken seriously until you make this move.
Either of these scenarios makes the business case pretty automatic.
Are We Rapidly Growing?
The more aggressively your business is scaling, the more likely it is you are now seen a need to change or update your data architecture.
This could be particularly true if you are now looking at different branch offices over a widely spread out area. Maybe even on different sides of the country.
This is placing a higher-than-ever-level of focus on accessibility and access. Your growing and expanding workforce needs timely access to your data.
Have We Experienced a Breach or an Outage?
There are a number of online calculators out there to help you estimate the damage from extended downtime for your company because of a hack or an outage.
However, if you are reading this blog today, the chances are very good that you already know exactly how much these hacks or outages will cost you. Because you have already experienced one and you are dealing with the financial fallout.
Upgrading your data hierarchy is never ideal to do after experiencing an event like this. Ultimately, you want to stay ahead of these risks instead of trying to mitigate the damage after the fact. In either case, you now know that your business’ data is your most valuable asset, and you most likely know the price tag that comes with a data incident.
If you’re thinking about moving your data offsite for “good” reasons, congratulations! If you’re doing it for “bad” reasons, you have our deepest sympathies. In either case, this can be a business-defining decision that gives your company a new level of access and security for your data.
Whatever the reasons for the move, switching over to offsite data in 2020 can set you up to have your most productive and profitable year yet!