What Is Offsite Backup and Why You Need It?

The 3-2-1 backup rule is the gold standard of data protection, which includes 3 backup copies on 2 different storage media and 1 should be stored offsite. In this way, the company is prepared to reverse the situation where data is stolen or exfiltrated.

So, generally, offsite backup is an indispensable part of a disaster recovery plan that equips organizations with data portability, flexibility, security, and economy.

What is offsite data backup?

Offsite backup, or off-premise backup, is the copy of files, systems, and other critical data sent out of the main location using removable storage media (like tape) or a remote backup service. Transporting data backups offsite guarantees the servers can be reloaded with the recent data if the system crashes, hardware fails, or hacker attacks. You can also make sure that there is a backup copy of pertinent data getting ready in another save house.

Offsite backup types:

1. Offsite server backup keeps backups in a distant secondary data center synchronously or asynchronously, usually along with local backups.

2. Tape backup copies data from primary storage to tape cartridges, which is the common practice of large companies with massive data volumes. While it’s good for long-term retention, it is also difficult to store, backup, and read from anywhere. And it is easily subject to physical damage. Other external drives like CDs and USBs are the same.

3. Cloud backup sends your data to the cloud over a network. It is among the most available and effective ways to store offsite backups. And data recovery from cloud backups is also easy and fast in the event of data loss.

4. Hybrid backup incorporates local backup and cloud or server backup. Data is saved to the on-premise disc for fast backup and recovery, then transferred to a remote server in another location or cloud for protection against data loss disasters.

How does offsite backup work?

How offsite backup works varies with the methods. The most cost-effective and easiest way is to back up or archive data directly to the public cloud like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and more. Or a similar way is backing up data to the private cloud of backup-as-a-service (Baas) solutions that specialize in data recovery as well. 

Another way is a cloud-to-cloud backup that uses one cloud to back up data in a different cloud to prevent cloud-level data loss. Of course, some choose to back up data to physical media like tape or disk, which necessities a huge investment in backup facilities and places for storage.

Why the backup media should be stored offsite?

An onsite backup may be stolen, corrupted, or encrypted by hackers, while an offsite backup saves the day and enables data retrieval in such cases.

1. Away from onsite damages: primary site systems outages from natural disasters or human errors and software failures won’t affect the offsite backup.

2. Improved data security: if ransomware attacks compromise or encrypt the local backups, air-gapped offsite backup without connection to the main networks will survive.

3. Disaster recovery resource: one of the major reasons you keep the offsite backup is to use it as a disaster recovery resource for shorter RTO and RPO supposing there are any accidents.

4. Reduced costs: off-site backup cuts down costs otherwise spent on hardware purchase, storage expansion, and data loss consequences, such as brand damage and hefty fines.

5. High data availability: you can access your data anytime and anywhere using offsite backup, whether it is a cloud backup or a remote backup copy.

Offsite backup with Vinchin Backup & Recovery

Despite the fact that some businesses maintain and store their own off-site backups, the majority of them opt to have their backups handled and kept by third-party solutions that are experts in the commercial protection of off-site data.

Vinchin Backup & Recovery supports 10+ virtualizations including VMware, Citrix Hypervisor (XenServer), OpenStack, Oracle OLVM, etc., 6 databases, Linux & Windows Servers, and NAS, which has its own way to perform offsite backups and protect them from malware attacks.

Before that, the solution allows you to automate backup on a regular basis with Full, Incremental, and Differential backup via self-define schedules and mail alerts. This ensures that you have multiple data backups available for later use.

With the solution, you have:

• Free offsite backup copy in another location (Standard License or above);

• Anti-ransomware backup storage;

• Backup data encryption with AES-256 standard and encrypted transmission with SSL;

• 15s instant recovery for seamless business continuity;

• Archiving data to public clouds.

Set up an offsite backup copy:

1.   Add backup storage.

Log in to Vinchin Backup & Recovery and go to Resources > Storage, then click Add to enter the storage information.

2.   Select a backup copy source.

Navigate to Backup Copy> Copy in the software, select the copied resource(s) from the completed backup jobs and click Next.

3.   Configure copy strategies.

Set the backup Copy as Scheduled to run the job regularly or designate it as a Once-off Copy job, click Next.

Specify the Copy Destination, its server, and storage. You can also encrypt and compress the data transmission under Transmission Strategy, and set up the retention policy and speed if you like. Click Next. Review all the settings and click Submit.

Here is a 60-day full-featured free trial for you to give it a try below.

Wrap up

Offsite backup is a backup copy of crucial data transported to another location for disaster recovery when system and hardware crash or the primary site collapses. It is a part of the disaster recovery plan for data security.

Vinchin Backup & Recovery provides frequent backups, an offsite backup copy in another location, anti-malware backup protection, and instant recovery for a well-rounded data protection strategy.