While we wish it were not the case, one particular area where major increases in ransomware and cybersecurity attacks have been seen in recent years is for various K-12 schools and school districts. Due to how much more frequent these attacks are, it’s become even more important for school districts to protect themselves — and one of the top resources available to them is the use of cloud storage and data backup services.
At Storage Whale, we’re happy to help with data backup and recovery services for numerous business types, no matter how large or small your entity is. We offer digital storage capabilities that mitigate the threat of cybersecurity attacks by preserving all your important data and keeping it safe. Why is cloud storage becoming an increasingly popular approach for school districts to protect their data, and how can you go about finding an ideal partner for data storage? Here’s a primer.
Benefits of Cloud Storage for School Districts
There are numerous benefits to cloud storage within school districts, including each of the following areas:
- Cloud data backup or data storage is one way that school districts can make their data security costs more predictable and easier to manage. When compared to other data management or data protection strategies, cloud data storage makes it easier for school districts to forecast and plan for future data security expenses. That can help you better budget for what your data security costs are going to be in the future. You can also use this information when negotiating with a third-party data protection vendor.
- It’s also worth considering that cloud data backup services provide databases and applications that are inherently more secure than those on-premises, mainly because they provide a greater level of control over data access. Accessing enterprise data from within cloud databases is further protected by certain data breach prevention tools. Lastly, data backup through the cloud can help to protect against threats like natural disasters or data loss situations that affect an entire region to a greater degree than they would individual data centers.
- When you sign up for data storage with a cloud provider, you gain access to data backups that are very close in proximity to your data. Because data on cloud data storage services is stored close to the data source, it’s easier to recover data when a data loss situation arises than if data was stored in another location — this proximity also means that data backup speeds are typically much higher for cloud data protection solutions.
- Ransomware is on the rise in K-12 schools, so data backup and data protection services are becoming more important than ever. Proper cloud storage solutions block unauthorized parties from modifying, deleting, encrypting or otherwise tampering with data through ransomware.
- In many cases, data backup and data storage solutions provide data protection that can free up your IT staff to focus on other priorities. One benefit of cloud data backup is that it has the capability to be managed remotely — which means you don’t have to dedicate IT staff or resources solely to data backup when they could be used elsewhere in your district instead. In addition, if you use an external cloud data protection provider, data backup management becomes a service that is provided by your cloud data storage partner on your behalf.
- In most data storage cases, data security costs are included in the data storage fees. This means you don’t have to pay extra for data storage and data protection — it’s all bundled together into one package. In some cases, data backup may even be free.
Choosing a Cloud Provider for Your School District
Here are some important elements to consider while determining an ideal partner for your school district’s cloud storage needs:
- The protections offered by data breach prevention tools vary depending on the vendor you’re considering for your data backup needs. For example, some vendors offer specialized encryption to help block ransomware attacks, while other vendors provide advanced encryption methods like tokenization to safeguard sensitive data from unauthorized access. If you’re looking for a reliable data protection solution for your school district’s cloud backups that also ensures data immutability, take a closer look at providers who offer these capabilities as well.
- HIPAA and data privacy compliance are legal requirements that must be taken into account when choosing data backup and data protection solutions for K-12 school districts. These regulations cover the handling, use, disclosure, or sharing of employee’s personal health data and require individuals who handle such data to comply with a number of security mandates. HIPAA not only governs data protection for employers like schools but also for employees of the school district.
- Naturally, it’s also important to consider pricing factors while making your decision. Ask a provider how they price their services, which fees are required, and whether there are required spend minimums. Compare these prices with other providers to get the full picture.
Support services are important to consider, too. When evaluating data backup and data storage providers, keep in mind the following points:
- How is data backup support pricing structured? Are data protection fees included in data storage rates?
- What data security tools does the provider offer? What data protection methods does the provider offer?
- How will a data breach impact my district’s data storage needs?
- How much data backup management will be handled by internal support staff or external cloud data protection providers?
For more on the value of quality cloud storage and data backup solutions for school districts, or to learn about any of our storage services, speak to the staff at Storage Whale today.