Data Security

Data security is of paramount importance for quality management software (QMS) as well as most other business software. It is important to protect your company’s data against hardware failures, ransomware attacks, virus attacks, and other spurious events.

SBS strongly recommends using an effective SQL back-up strategy to avoid data loss. An effective strategy consists of daily, weekly, and monthly backup archives. Each company is different and has different security thresholds or risk evaluations. The key question that you must ask is “how much data are you willing to lose?”

At a minimum, we recommend the following strategy:

  • Daily backups should be made and stored for a period of 2 to 4 weeks.
  • Weekly backups saved for 10 to 20 weeks
  • Monthly backups saved for 6 to 12 months.

Backups must not be stored on the same hard drive as the SQL server. With the popularity and affordability of cloud-based systems, users should consider a cloud-based archival strategy. At a minimum, backups should be stored on a secured external hard drive.

If you have the full version of SQL you may configure your back-up using the SQL tools included with your SQL server license (SQL Server Agent) or use 3rd party software.

If you have the SQL express version you may consider downloading 3rd party utility such as

These products are very affordable and can save you considerable grief, time, and money if hardware crashes and backups are needed.

Apply some risk-based thinking and choose a backup strategy to improve your data security.