Cloud backup vs. local backup is a critical debate for many businesses. In this article, we will explore the positive and negative sides of both approaches. Moreover, we will show you how to combine the two methods to keep your data safe, ensure unhindered data access, and carry out disaster recovery if needed.

Organizations use a cloud backup service to back up their system, applications, and data to a cloud-based server in a remote location. This server can either be private or public. Some larger enterprises have the resources and budget to maintain a private cloud backup infrastructure, while smaller organizations typically use a public cloud storage service, which supports multiple tenants. The provider manages the infrastructure with a public cloud backup service, and the organization pays a monthly or annual subscription to use the service.

What are the cloud backup advantages?

Save money and resources.

Using cloud backup is less expensive than maintaining an on-premises backup system. Your organization does not need to purchase or maintain hardware and software nor worry about getting approval for a capital purchase. Instead, you pay a subscription fee that is an operational expense item.

Data protection in the event of a disaster

On-premises or local backups can be destroyed in a local disaster, such as a tornado, hurricane, flood, etc. While your offices and systems may be conquered, data backed up to the cloud will be isolated from that event, ensuring your organization can get up and running again.

Data is accessible from anywhere.

You can access your backed-up data anytime if you have an internet connection. While restoring a full backup from the cloud backup can take time, it is fast and easy to download just a few files from the cloud.

Better data security

Some may argue that a public cloud backup is not as secure as a local data backup. Yet, a seasoned cloud provider can provide better security for small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that may not have a cyber security expert on staff.

Protection from cyberattacks

Your data will be safe if a cybercriminal attacks your on-premises systems. In addition to compromising or destroying production data, attackers typically delete or tamper with local backups, and having remote offsite backups in the cloud keeps that data protected.

Scalability

Your organization can scale cloud services without purchasing more hardware or software. Instead, scaling cloud services is easy and can be done on demand – although your subscription price will likely increase accordingly.

What are the cloud backup disadvantages?

It takes time to download a full backup.

Depending on your internet bandwidth and the data volume, it can take hours to days to download a full backup from the cloud. 

Potential for data loss when the contract ends

Be careful and closely scrutinize the cloud computing provider’s policy about canceled contracts. You’ll want to be sure you can access and download your backup if you cancel your contract. Confirm how long the cloud backup provider will keep your data upon contract cancellation.

Difficult to switch cloud providers

If you have your data backup with one cloud provider and decide to move to another, it can be time-consuming to make the switch. While you can back up your systems to the new cloud provider, you will also want to migrate your older backups to the new cloud infrastructure. Some tools help you perform cloud-to-cloud migrations, but these tools work best if you only have smaller volumes of data.

If you have large volumes of data backed up with the original cloud provider, you will need to download those files and then upload them to the new cloud provider’s infrastructure. Uploading and downloading a large volume of data can take a significant amount of time, depending upon bandwidth.

Cloud storage backup types

There are three primary cloud backup approaches – full, incremental, and differential backups.

• Full backups

Full backups take every file on a specific device (or a network) and copy it to cloud backup. If, for example, a natural disaster compromises your local backup, you can recover critical data from the full cloud backup.

• Incremental backups

If you opt for a full backup every time you make data changes, you can quickly run out of storage space. Incremental backup checks for changed files since your last backup (incremental or full) and only copies them to cloud storage.

• Differential backups

Similarly to incremental, differential backup only focuses on changed data for a new online backup. However, data backup here considers only files changed since the last full backup.

At least one full backup is required to initiate incremental or differential data copies. While the first approach guarantees protection against local natural calamities and designated cyberattacks, the second and third provide more control over your online backup process.

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