Data protection is high on everyone’s wish list – particularly when we are hearing of the sudden outbreak of data leakages recently.

One thing you have to bear in mind is that data security is not the sole responsibility of the IT department; it is a whole business function. You have to marry the value of your data to your business objectives. One question I would always ask the business: what would be the impact on the business if we were unable to access data for any length of time?

Data protection is unique to every business; you don’t have a “one solution fits all” strategy. What you have to do is follow the best practice and understand some of the lessons that have been learned by the industry over the last few years.

Senior management

As stated, data protection is the responsibility of the management, therefore you have to have a buy-in from all the relevant departments and a will to change the way they’ve been saving data. You need to implement a data protection strategy and that will take time and planning.

Data Protection requirements

By implementing a data protection strategy, you can begin to understand what your data protection needs are and build a solution around those needs.

Choosing the right tools

Once your needs have been agreed on by management, and understood by the business, you can engage the IT department to design the right solution and strategy to take the business forward for the next 5 years.

Re-evaluate your requirements

Businesses change, requirements change. This means it is important to re-evaluate on a regular basis (normally once a year) to ensure you are still meeting the objectives set out in the business strategy. Once you have set your Data Protection Strategy, you will need to engage with storage, backup, business continuity and disaster recovery experts to help you put together your data protection solution. This is where Unleashed can help you: we work with a number of leading IT companies and will design a solution that fits your need and budget.