Cloud backups are king in the digital age

As digital dentistry increasingly becomes the norm, the importance of protecting all the data your practice is continually accumulating cannot be understated. Your data is not only vital to the running of your business, but also contains customer and patient information, imagery and x-rays that can easily run to hundreds of gigabytes and legally must be protected and backed up within Australia. If you don't take your data seriously now, just think about what it would be like if you walked in tomorrow and it was no longer there. The possibility of data loss is very real; how much it hurts when it happens is a matter of what you do now. We spoke to Andrej Petkovski at Sydney Backups about the service they already offer to hundreds of dental practices around Australia.

Andrej, tell us about Sydney Backups and the secure dental cloud backup service you're providing for practices around Australia?

Of course. For many years now, every dental practice has been accumulating large quantities of data on a daily basis. With the increased uptake of digital x-ray, CBCT and intraoral scanning, the amount of data is growing faster than ever. Practices continually rely on this data in order to function, yet rarely give a lot of thought to protecting it... until, of course, there is a problem. So we've created a secure, managed solution for dental practices that both automatically maintains a continual cloud backup of their data and provides support if there is a problem so that they can recover quickly.

What sort of problems do dental practices have?

The challenges dental practices face are not unique. Software can be infected with viruses or Ransomware and data can be lost through human error or malicious intent. The most common issue is that universally, all hardware eventually fails. Hardware can also be stolen or damaged in a flood or fire. Regardless of what happens to your data, from $129 a month, we provide you with a secure, robust and reliable cloud backup service that will ensure you are up and running quickly should a problem occur.

But I can get a Google® Cloud backup for a tenth of that price, how is your service different?

There are cheaper cloud storage solutions on the market but they don't provide the same level of security and robustness as the service we offer. Our cloud backups are purposely built for dentistry and there are continuous improvements and new feature sets developed to make the recovery process faster and more automated. Our solution is also fully managed, unlike cheaper options where responsibility to set it up, back it up, monitor it, test it and recover it is down to you. In addition, using cloud storage as a backup typically will not stop viruses and Ransomware from infecting your backed-up files. And, if you have hundreds of gigabytes of data backed up in the cloud, you also have to realise it will take a long time to download it before you can begin your recovery. So by using Sydney Backups, we address all of these problems to ensure your data is protected and in the case of a disaster, restored as quickly as possible.

How does the backup system actually work?

Our solution provides two recovery locations. The first is onsite in your practice (on an encrypted device that we supply) for fast recovery; and the second is on our private cloud for disaster recovery scenarios. We can recover all your data if there is a catastrophic event; or individual files. In a disaster scenario, we will provide a full copy of all your data within 24 to 48 hours (depending on where you are located in Australia) on an encrypted external hard drive that you can restore from. This is particularly important for customers with large amounts of data and/or slow internet speeds so you don't rely on having to download it from the cloud which could take weeks. We also have options for "virtual recovery" within our private cloud to allow practices to start operating much faster while their own systems are recovered.

What about viruses, malware and ransomware?

We've had practices suffer data corruption from all of these and invariably, the onsite backup is also at a high risk of becoming infected too. The secure cloud backup we create is heavily protected and is especially designed to block any kind of malware. So in these situations, our customers have been able to recover without paying Bitcoin ransoms. Sadly, we have also gained customers who have learnt the hard way that you need to take protecting your data very seriously... before problems occur.

What do customers say is the best thing about your service?

We have been working within the dental industry for over 12 years and our staff deeply understand the set up of all dental systems and infrastructure, so when a client calls for help, we work to resolve their issue with utmost priority. Our strength is in our fast and capable response so our customers are always grateful to be back up running with minimal down time.

How does a dental practice, clinic or laboratory become a customer and start using your service?

It's easy. You can sign up at www.sydneybackups.com.au or if you want to learn more about the product and our service, contact us for further information. Once you're on board, you'll receive a welcome pack and we'll schedule a time that suits you to do the initial set-up. There is very little downtime as we work with you to minimise any disruption and we can set it up remotely. Your system will then start backing up incrementally, on an hourly basis, over the secure internet connection to our private cloud. We provide you with daily email backup reports so you know it's working. It's that easy. The backup works over any type of internet connection - ADSL, NBN or better. Our cloud backup solution is solid and secure. It takes away the stress and gives your business peace of mind.