During 2009 we at Professional Accounting Services (PAS) suffered a near catastrophic disaster when our computers were stolen at the same time we were performing standard backups. The thieves broke the removable backup hard drive leaving us with no retrievable data with which to restore. The cost to recover and restore the data and at the same time to continue to function for the following 4 months was over ZAR 300,000.

This is an actual event, and it could quite easily happen to you. The loss of data may not originate from a theft but possibly from a simple crash of your hard drive/s!

We have as a result put together a great package which uses NAS technology. Without going into too much detail, it is quick, effective, cost effective solution overseen by an experienced IT specialist. Our own server is now backed up every night, from accounting data to Word, Excel and Email messages. We have also tested ADSL connectivity and have found it to be well within acceptable security boundaries. The encryption used is 1024 bit encrypted VPN connection with multi-layered firewall intrusion and protection which completely encapsulates the system.

The bottom line is that we now offer clients backup facilities from their own offices to PAS offices over ADSL lines thus ensuring extremely secure data-transfer without exposing it to the internet and other potentially dangerous external sources. Data is stored in a locked secure area on our NAS servers. Whilst everyone knows offsite backups are the answer - the problem has always been the security of the data, the cost of the data and finally the integrity of the data if a restore is necessary. The questions are: have you got this security in place yet? Are you in the same position we were a few months back? Is all your data being backed up successfully at a nominal cost? And the final and most important question – is the backed up data off site? If not, our experience says you are probably wasting your time.