Backup: Essential for Business Continuity

The best practice for ensuring business continuity in the face of IT risks remains, now more than ever, a robust backup strategy. For many organizations, it is quite simply a matter of survival.

Increasingly, the operations of businesses and organizations depend on their IT systems. If those systems become unavailable for any reason, the entire business can grind to a halt.

“On a regular basis, we see companies lose their entire production capacity as a result of system failures or cyberattacks,” explains Jacques Mielcarek, Sales Consultant Storage at Proximus NXT (Proximus Luxembourg). “If a company is unable to quickly restore its business applications and data, the economic and financial consequences can rapidly become disastrous.”

For the vast majority of businesses, the loss of data that is critical to operations is simply fatal.

The Importance of Backup

For several years, these issues have been at the heart of business discussions. Cybersecurity has become a major component of organizational risk management strategies, particularly in response to the growing number of cyberattacks.

“Luxembourg is no exception,” continues Jacques Mielcarek. “Recent cases have demonstrated that both small and large companies can be brought to a standstill by malicious actors who encrypt all their data and demand a ransom to release it. To combat these attacks, one essential technology—often underestimated within cybersecurity strategies—remains backup.”

On June 16, during a webinar organized in partnership with NetApp and Commvault, Proximus NXT will discuss the importance of backup and the latest technologies that help strengthen business resilience.

Ensuring Operational Continuity

Backup is far more than a necessary evil, despite how it is still often perceived today.

“On the contrary, it should be viewed as a central element in protecting an organization’s production environment,” explains Alain Letecheur, Head of Presales Department, Products & Solutions, Datacenter & Applications.

“The move toward cloud environments and hybrid infrastructures—where some data remains on-premises while other workloads are hosted through Software-as-a-Service platforms—has made backup strategies more complex.”

Moreover, storing systems or data on a public cloud platform does not automatically guarantee that they are properly secured.

“Quite the opposite,” adds Alain Letecheur. “Public cloud providers generally offer only a basic level of protection. Companies must also consider what would happen if a cloud platform were to experience a large-scale technical failure. This highlights the importance of backup, which ensures that data can be recovered and restored when needed.”

Building a Backup Strategy Aligned with Business Needs

Implementing a reliable backup strategy is fundamental to maintaining operations and ensuring business continuity. Backup must be embedded at the heart of the IT strategy and should be designed according to the organization’s infrastructure.

“If all systems are hosted in the cloud, the backup strategy should prioritize storing backup copies locally. Conversely, if all systems are on-premises, the organization should consider implementing cloud-based backups,” explains Alain Letecheur.

“When discussing backup, we often refer to the ‘3-2-1 rule,’” adds Jacques Mielcarek. “Although it is not a new concept, it remains highly relevant today. It recommends maintaining one copy of data off-site, using two different storage media such as tape and disk, and keeping three copies of the data overall.”

A backup strategy must also reflect the organization’s specific requirements, particularly regarding backup frequency and data retention periods.

For businesses operating in critical environments, backups may need to be performed daily—or even several times a day. For others, weekly backups may be sufficient. Retention periods will depend on various factors, including regulatory and compliance requirements.

Choosing the Right Backup Technologies

“The business context ultimately determines how a backup strategy should be implemented,” explains Alain Letecheur. “It guides the selection of technologies required to ensure both short-term and long-term data preservation, while also enabling backup management across heterogeneous environments.”

Thanks to advanced technologies such as those provided by NetApp and Commvault, both partners of Proximus NXT, it is now possible to guarantee high-quality backup and recovery capabilities across complex and diverse IT infrastructures.

“This is a major concern for our customers, who do not want to dedicate a full-time resource solely to backup operations,” says Jacques Mielcarek. “That is why it is important to support the integration of backup technologies that ensure service continuity while optimizing both resources and costs associated with data protection.”

Ultimately, backup is not merely an IT requirement—it is a strategic asset that protects business continuity, strengthens resilience against cyber threats, and safeguards the future of the organization.