What Type of Backups are Best for Real Estate Companies?

Next up in our backups series- Real Estate!

Being in the real estate business in not easy, especially now that the housing market is starting to bounce back. And in this area (Northern Virginia, DC Metro, and Maryland) we are seeing major leaps and bounds for real estate that is only going to continue to grow. As a realtor, you need to be on-call almost constantly, you need to work odd hours and weekends, and perhaps most important, you need to be able to receive real-time updates and information. If you find yourself in a situation where you lose data, or aren’t able to provide your clients with the most up-to-date information, you risk losing them.

A major component of consistently excellent work is going to be your backups. If you have great backups, you are going to be able to work without the fear that you might lose your data, or without worrying what you are going to tell your clients when your computer crashes.

Because most realtors need to be out and about most of the time, we recommend using cloud-based services to keep track of your data and help you with your backups. There are really great programs out there such as Dropbox, Google Docs, iCloud, SkyDrive, and Egnyte, that give you the flexibility of storing everything in the cloud, which means that you can access it from anywhere, even on the go. To learn more about these programs and determine which one is right for your company, check out this blog post.

If your company is small enough that you are working entirely with cloud-based programs, most likely you will not need to worry about another form of backups. Since all your information will be stored in these programs, they have their own system of backups, and that takes the problem out of your hands.

However, there are a couple of situations where you should still have backups. First, if the cloud-based program you are using has an onsite component (ex: Egnyte), then you will still want to make sure you have a backup system in place so you don’t lose anything.

Next, if you don’t store all your data in the cloud-based programs, you want to have backups. It is a great idea to store everything there, since you are already paying for the program and they have their own backups system. However, if there is some data you don’t feel comfortable storing in the cloud, you need make sure you have it backed up, especially because it is probably sensitive information.

If you are going to use backups, make sure you have both an onsite and off-site component. If you only have an onsite backup device, and there is a problem at your office (even something small like a power outage) you won’t be able to access your backups. Also, given how real estate companies need to always have access to real-time updates, losing a few hours or even worse, a few days, could have a serious impact on your business.

Questions about what type of backups are best for your company? Ask us in the comments!


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