No one's challenging the importance or value of a good IT Department in today's business world - but top management really should understand at least the basic reasons IT makes the choices and decisions it makes. So, in plain English, here's why online, offsite data storage should be given serious thought.

Consider how crippling (and painful) would it be if your business suddenly lost all its files. Customer data ... customer orders ... your own business data.... Just imagining what it would be like is enough to send most business owners into a panic - and rightfully so. Yet many (if not most) businesses put their commercial lives at risk online every single day -- and aren't even aware of doing so.

In a business sense, if in no other, ignorance most definitely is not bliss. With the explosion of commerce on the internet, competition is fiercer than it has been ever before in history. In today's business climate, it's absolutely essential that your online business operate without fail day and night, every day of the year -- because if error messages or downed servers or other glitches greet potential customers when they access your site, your many competitors are just a simple mouse-click away, ready and eager to snatch them out of your hands.

Your every day, online dealings with customers are conducted with the help of databases on your own servers, on your own premises, supplying relevant customer and business information. Any significant or recurring glitch in this service instantaneously translates to poor customer relations, loss of business and a sullied business reputation. Any way you look at it, loss or corruption of customer data is going to cost your business time and money - whether it's in lost or inaccurate sales or in server downtime to find and fix the errors.

Remote, offsite backup essentially functions in the same way regular tape backups do - but with one major - and important - difference. Instead of sending backups to a tape or to another drive attached to your on-site server, data is sent to another computer safely off-site. No one has to remember to do it, either; it's automatically done, each and every day.

Even if you already utilize a tape backup system, incorporating a remote backup system as well makes sound business sense. Critical files (such as customer contacts, billing data, client databases, etc.) can be kept on the remote backup system. Your tape system then can be used to create a full backup of the system just once a month or so. Doing this, your on-site tapes will last longer - and the drive will require less maintenance - while the remote backup gives you quick and easy retrieval of critical files and databases as needed.

With online backup, smooth functioning of online transactions supplying crucial customer and business information is assured. A good remote online backup service keeps your data safe and secure in remote locations and allows you to access, update, and recover important files and documents without your business suffering downtime or lost customers.