28 Apr 2009

Businesses 'should back-up with SaaS'

Businesses should make back-ups and have third-party help in place to help them regain data quickly should it be lost, according to an expert.

Tony Neate, managing director at Get Safe Online, said using software-as-a-service (SaaS) or cloud computing technologies to back-up data could ensure that the affect of outages or viruses is minimal.

Mr Neate suggested that in a time when more and more businesses are relying on the internet, the need for disaster recovery plans is heightened.

"The bigger you get you need to start looking at the security - not just IT as a singular, individual item - but the security part of it as well because it is vital," he added.

According to a survey by Econsultancy, SaaS is being widely used by companies, with 77 per cent of UK firms using it for email and 57 per cent using it for file and asset storage.

The majority of respondents surveyed (75 per cent) cited the convenience of having an IT infrastructure maintained by the provider as the major benefit of choosing the service.