Almost everyone in this digital age has experienced some sort of data loss. Whether it was losing a year’s worth of personal photos or having all your critical files wiped out due to a hard drive crash, data loss can be devastating.
Backing up data is something we all know we should do, but unfortunately, it often takes catastrophic data loss to remind us just how important having a strong (and regularly tested) data backup and recovery policy is.

Something as simple as a coffee spill on a laptop or as malicious as a ransomware attack can happen at anytime without warning, which is why the adoption of what’s known as the 3-2-1 Backup Rule is vital to helping you ensure that your files will be safe no matter what happens.

What Is The 3-2-1 Backup Rule?

You may ask yourself what is “The 3-2-1 Rule” and why do I care when it comes to ransomware? Well, the 3-2-1 Backup Rule is an industry standard for how to protect data and it is your ultimate line of defense system in the fight against ransomware. It actually protects you from relying on a single backup that could potentially fail and leave you at a loss.

Did you know? The average failure rate for backing up all company data is 75%.

The scenario that happens all too often is that a person starts a backup and then never monitors it. What ends up happening is that they only find out much later, usually when they need data restored urgently, that something has gone wrong and the backup wasn’t working as planned.

The 3-2-1 Backup Rule protects against common backup problems by ensuring you’re not putting all your eggs in one basket when it comes to your data storage.

Breaking down the 3-2-1 rule

We break the 3-2-1 rule down into three parts:

• 3 - Store Three Copies Of All Your Data
• 2- Ensure At Least Two Copies Are On Different Storage Media
• 1- Keep At Least One Copy Of Your Data Off Site

3 - Store Three Copies Of All Your Data

The first mandate of the rule is to store three copies of all your data, which means that one copy is the original data supported by two separate backup copies so that if one backup goes wrong, you still have another to rely on.

2 - Ensure At Least Two Copies Are On Different Storage Media

The second tenant of the rule is to make sure you’re not storing all your copies on the same type of storage media. For example, if you keep all your data and backups in the cloud, that can mean you’re without critical files in the event of a power or internet outage.

You also don’t want to keep all three copies of your data on the same server, otherwise you could lose everything should it crash or be infected with ransomware.

1 - Keep At Least One Copy Of Your Data Off Site

The last part of the 3-2-1 backup rule is to keep at least one of those three data copies off site to ensure business continuity should anything happen at your office.

Having one of your data copies as a cloud-based backup is smart, and a way to ensure you can easily restore your data to any device at any location if needed.

Final thoughts

Properly backing up your data using the 3-2-1 backup rules is the one of the first steps to protecting your business from ransomware attacks. Even though having several backups can’t prevent malicious software from infiltrating your systems and networks, it can help you with safeguarding your data from harm.

The Ultimate Backup Solution for your business

Being Gold Veeam Partner in Saudi Arabia, Ctelecoms provides an extensive array of Data Availability Solutions that strictly follow the 3-2-1 rule to proactively safeguard Saudi businesses against all data loss scenarios. To learn more about how Ctelecoms can help your business, get in touch with our expert team.