How Redfin Keeps Cloud-Based Data Safe

So Eric Hollenbeck, senior manager of IT and business services, decided not to rely solely on the redundancies touted by cloud providers. Instead, he deployed Spanning Backup early last year to ensure that critical documents on Google Drive could always be accessed and re-created.

“Whether you provide services to your organization via the cloud or on-site services, you should always have a robust, reliable backup service. You don’t want to be that guy who doesn’t have the data when someone comes asking for it,” he says.

Holger Mueller, an analyst with Constellation Research, says Hollenbeck’s approach is at the forefront of emerging best practices. He says IT leaders should pay attention to the fine print in agreements with cloud providers, which often don’t provide timely or complete data backup.

“It’s all in its infancy, so many enterprises aren’t getting this backup,” he says.