In particular, the final clause of 3-2-1 is vital: keeping a copy of your data off-site – or, in the case of cloud solutions, with a different vendor – represents an “air-gap” between the removed backup and the rest of your backups (along with your business operations). This refers to the idea of keeping three copies of your data, with two on different media formats, and one copy kept off-site. Whether you’re storing all your data on-premise or working with an external cloud storage vendor to store your data, a good rule to follow when it comes to creating data redundancy is the “3-2-1” rule. Natural disasters, accidental misconfigurations, ransomware, or internal sabotage any data that’s stored with just one provider has a vulnerability to such threats simply owing to its proximity to risk. In the event of disruption or data loss, you can then use your backups to restore business continuity.Īs part of this, an air gap is crucial as it serves to alleviate a wide variety of risks that otherwise hang over a business. The best way to mitigate data disruption or destruction is through creating redundancy in your data storage approach: you should maintain copies of your data that are disconnected from your live workflows.

How do you insure yourself against the numerous causes of data disruption or loss, whether power outages, fires, floods, misconfigurations, ransomware, or sabotage? The answer lies in diversifying your cloud backups and introducing something called an “air-gap” into your backup plan. Either way, you need to insure yourself against this risk. It’s far from unusual for today’s businesses to face temporary downtime from a data breach – which IBM estimated cost the average company $1.52m in lost business alone – or the permanent loss of years worth of data and business output. Whether it be your project files, customer records, the assets for your website, the continuity of your business is likely dependent on your team having instantaneous access to your data stores. Today, ubiquitous access to data is essential for virtually every business in every sector. But despite the enthusiasm of many businesses to hedge against such risks through taking out building insurance or public liability cover, they don’t hedge against one of the most immediate risks to business operations in the modern world: the loss of their data. Most businesses adopt insurance policies to mitigate the risk posed by accidents, disasters, or tragedies.

Gapped meaning