Data Backup Digest

Capturing all the data within your organisation can be a challenging thing, especially thanks to the widespread use of mobile devices. While data stored on a computer or laptop can be easily controlled within an enterprise network connection, things get a bit trickier when it comes to mobile.

If you want to have a solid backup plan, you need to ensure that every piece of data is fully captured on a regular basis. The difficulties of doing this on mobile aren’t down to a single factor – there’s a variety of reasons as to why it can be a challenge. But knowing what these are can help you overcome them, so let’s take a look at some of the biggest difficulties when it comes to backing up mobile data.

One of the biggest problems over the recent years is the fact that people are using their own personal devices to carry out their work, rather than ones provided by the business. It’s understandable – it can be a pain to have multiple devices with you and makes it simpler to just use the device you’re already used to.

A privately owned device can have some level of control implemented on it, but never as much as one that is solely controlled by the business. As such, it requires educating users on the exact dangers that using their personal device has. Not only in terms of backup, but privacy too.

This practices also means that a business doesn’t always have complete oversight as to all the devices that are in use and holding their data. Perhaps there’s a legislation that requires particular data to be deleted after a certain amount of time. That’s very hard to monitor when stored on personal devices. It can also be hard to provide support when you don’t know exactly what type of devices are being used.

Mobile devices can vary a lot. Though there’s primarily iOS and Android used as operating systems, there’s still a lot of different versions in use and different device form factors. There’s also BlackBerry and Windows Mobile to consider. Having a single backup program that supports all these different operating systems and devices is unlikely, so it’s important that your backup plan considers all these different variations.

Data backup relies on internet connection when it comes to mobile devices, but while we might expect that every device is always connected it’s not always that simple. This is especially true for business users who might be travelling a lot, into areas that don’t have connection or on a flight. Depending on how regularly you need to backup, having these periods of downtime can cause difficulties.

Finally, it’s a common misconception that mobile devices are simply storing data that exists elsewhere. This isn’t true anymore. Mobile devices are often used for content creation, meaning that the source of the data is actually on them.

With all of this in mind, your backup plan is not complete if you’re not thinking about mobile. Consider policies you can impose, practices you can education on and software you can use to ensure that all your data is captured across the business.