Is the 3-2-1 data backup rule perfect? There is hardly anything perfect in the world, but the 3-2-1 approach is the best practice recommended by information security professionals, as well as government authorities, e.g., US-CERT (United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team) in its Data Backup Options publication issued in 2012.

Multiple copies stipulated by the 3-2-1 backup rule protect you from losing your primary data together with its only backup copy, whereas storing copies of data in multiple locations ensures that there is no single point of failure and that your data is safe, should something happen to any of these locations.

There are many concepts that factor into good backup design, as well as a great number of pros and cons to consider in every aspect of their implementation. The challenge is not to build a universal solution, but to develop a well-balanced data protection plan that best suits our customer needs. Therefore, while including the 3-2-1 backup rule, the plan should cover many other aspects of data protection, such as critical data areas, backup types, storage media, scheduling, disaster recovery operation, automation, encryption, regular live testing under different scenarios, etc.

Although the 3-2-1 backup rule creates a great baseline, there are multiple other considerations that should be made when creating a backup plan to achieve optimized recovery time objectives and recovery point objectives:

• How do backups need to be recovered during a major outage?
• How many historical restore points do I need?
• At what frequency do my backups need to occur?
• Does my business have compliance needs that require additional backups beyond 3-2-1?
• How quickly does my data need to be recovered from a backup?
• How quickly is my backup data growing in my environment?
• Does my backup need to be application-aware?

All of these considerations can be tackled with different solutions, each with it owns set of benefits. It is important to evaluate the needs of the business before selecting a data backup & recovery solution.

Not all cloud backup solutions are created equal. BlackTop prides itself on providing the highest quality solution available. We only focus on the needs of healthcare providers and businesses. Here are a few facts about the BlackTop business cloud backup solutions: More than just cloud storage, BlackTop provides monitored data protection and tech support for restores. US based phone support. Tier 4 data centers in the United States and Canada Mirrored data centers agentless deployment – no need to install on every machine you back up. SSAE-16 SOC 2 Type ll bi-annually audited. Support for multiple operating systems and databases Free unlimited local backups. Free local Image backups for fast disaster recovery.

Safe and secure data backup and protection is available 24x7x365 with BlackTop Data Backup. Our solution includes offsite and onsite backup with automatically installed updates giving you both piece of mind and the strongest safety net available in the industry.

The United States HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) is legislation that mandates data privacy and security provisions for the safeguarding of patient data by health organizations, including drugstores, hospitals, and specialized insurance companies. This law was further amended to include the HITECH Act (The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health). It is a requirement to apply necessary protection for any data for backup storage and data transfer to comply with these laws.