Unyielding Data Protection: Exploring the Benefits of Immutable Backup Solutions

September 11, 2023 No Comments

by Bancy Kubutha

There is no doubt backups are essential to the preservation of data and ensuring continuity of business functions. At a time when cyber-attacks and other vulnerabilities pose data loss risks, the need to have a solid data backup solution cannot be emphasized. There are numerous conventional ways of backing up your data. But sometimes these are not sufficient to guarantee full protection of the data.

Conventional backups can be prone to accidental deletions, errors, and data corruption- which compromises data integrity. That’s precisely why you need an immutable backup.  Immutability is one of the safest data backup approaches that companies can use to safeguard important information against the growing threat of cyber-attacks.

With this type of backup, you can’t delete or encrypt the data you store. In the event of a data breach, ransomware attack, data compromise or loss, they restore your backups immediately. In this article, we explore immutable backup solutions in detail and highlight the key benefits of using these storage solutions.

But first, let’s define Immutable Backups and Immutable Storage

Immutable backups are secure data copies that have an extra layer of protection against deletion or modification. These types of backups cannot be deleted or changed. Immutable backups use advanced cryptographic techniques to prevent unauthorized or unintentional changes for a specific period of time.

In immutable backups, data is stored using the ‘write once, read many’ (WORM) format. This makes it possible to make numerous entries without weakening data resistance against modification. which means it cannot be altered. This makes the backup highly secure and tamper-proof.

Immutable storage, on the other hand, is a form of data storage that ensures stored information can’t be deleted, altered, or overwritten after it’s been written.  This form of storage provides file stability and allows companies to maintain a consistent data storage context for important data like legal documents, staff, health, and financial records.

8 Benefits of Using Immutable Backup Solutions

Businesses and individuals can benefit greatly from storing data in immutable infrastructure. Here are 8 benefits that this backup solution offers users:

1. Utilizes Read-Only Data Formats

Immutable data backups utilize the write-one-read-many storage formats. By using the read-only format, your data is stored in an immutable format. This means modifications or deletions are off limits. The need to preserve information in its unaltered form means this option works well for delicate data storage.

2. Protection from Ransomware

When it comes to security, traditional backups cannot match the advantages that immutable storage offers. Ransomware attacks have become common these days with threats targeting organizations and people. Attackers encrypt data then demand for payment for them not to delete it. Immutable data guards your data against these threats. Since immutable data backups cannot be changed or removed, ransomware attacks on your data become ineffective.

3. Safe Data Recovery

Storing your files in immutable formats means you can recover your files at any time. You don’t have to worry whether your backup software actually works properly because the file might be corrupted or encrypted when you try to restore it again.

4. Indelible Storage

Immutable backups are indelible, which means they cannot be removed or altered. By leveraging immutable storage and immutable backup, you keep your data from being deleted while making it available and accessible whenever you need it. This form of backup guarantees data safety as it secures it from unintended deletions and changes that can easily lead to loss of data.

5. Maintains Data Accuracy

Immutable backups use the cryptographic hashing technique to safeguard the accuracy and authenticity of your data. Hashing preserves data integrity by verifying that the data has not been manipulated or tampered with. With this kind of backup, you are confident that your data hasn’t been breached, which is a guarantee of its security and authenticity.

6. Supports Testing/Development Environments

Immutable data storage works well in supporting development or testing environments. If you want to use a copy of your data for use in a testing or development environment immutable storage makes it seamless.

All you need to do is simply take the data volume and attach it to your system. Since Immutable backup copies cannot be changed, you don’t need special plans like installing multiple volumes on one machine. If your tests fail, the copy fails too. However, this does not matter because you can restart the process with another clone.

7. Fast Restoration

Conventional data backups apply incremental data recovery strategy. This means older backups get deleted over time. In the event of data loss, you can’t access previous file versions.  This is not the case with immutable backups. For the latter, to can restore all available versions because they are stored in separate places and remain unaltered throughout. You always have safe backups ready when something goes wrong.

8. Provide Proof of Compliance

You can use immutable backups to prove that your company complies with data storage standards. For instance, industries like legal, finance, and healthcare require storage of data in auditable formats. Immutable backups can help you to prove that your data has not been modified and you can go back several years to demonstrate this.

Conclusion

Every business, whether big or small, needs a secure backup to run its operations. But with so many emerging cyber threats, conventional data backups no longer guarantee data security. This is where immutable data backup technology comes in handy. Compared to conventional backups, immutable backups are better in many ways. The fact that they cannot be encrypted or modified in any way makes them secure and reliable.

Companies that use immutable backups benefit from full protection against ransomware attacks and fast data recovery in the event of loss. Immutable data backups also provide a stronger defense against accidental deletions, data compromise and corruption compared to conventional backups. Businesses that have highly sensitive data or those that have to comply with data storage requirements can leverage immutable technology to secure their data. If you have not started using immutable storage and data backups yet, consider doing so and enjoy the benefits discussed above.