Great apps are rarely built in a day.
But when your development team doesn’t take the necessary measures to back-up their work, great apps can fall apart in a day.
It’s easy for consumers and those on the app building side to take technology for granted, lulled by the seemingly constant, working access to everything you need at your fingertips.
But a power outage from a natural disaster or even a simple loss of wireless signal should be a reminder that apps and systems aren’t infallible.
Why Backup?
When so many people tell you to “backup your data” so frequently, it’s easy to ignore the request or worse, wrongfully assume that someone somewhere is making that happen for you.
But you need to be on top of your backup strategy with it comes to I.T. matters.
A natural disaster, terror threat, security breach or hack can cause you to lose significant work and code if these aren’t preserved. If you’re a small business owner, this means money out of your pocket.
Customers’ Expectations
On the consumer side of this hypothetical disaster, if backups aren’t in place, you’re potentially losing valuable customer data. Likewise, you’re compromising one of the most difficult things to earn as a company – your good reputation.
Customers don’t look kindly on apps and technology that are prone to mishaps especially if those lead to their own work getting lost.
Nobody likes to toil away for months at a game app, get past that unbeatable level, and then discover that all is lost because the app developers didn’t backup properly.
Likewise, as the article “Are Your App Developers Taking Backup Seriously?” points out, you want to make sure the restoration process is seamless on the customer end too.
If customers are getting a new phone, they expect your app’s data to transfer without issue.
Move to Automated Backup
Again, you shouldn’t assume that backup is happening automatically but fortunately, technology is moving in that direction.
According to Ars Technica, one of the newest updates to Android involves auto backup of apps.
Developers can choose to opt out of automatic backup or dig into the code to ensure that only certain aspects of the app get backed up automatically.
Not All Backups Are Created Equal
This is less about the actual technology as it is about the contents of your backup.
The move toward automation may seem like a convenient, obvious solution but app developers need to be careful about what exactly is going to be backed up into the cloud.
The Starbucks app, for example, was storing usernames and passwords in clear text, making that sensitive information vulnerable. When considering you backup strategy, be aware of the security threats involved in the storage of that sort of data.
App developers have a lot on their plate but backup I.T. plans should take priority.
By remembering customers’ expectation, looking into automated options, and finally testing those backup systems, developers can ensure their work is secure.
About the Author: Kristin Livingstone writes on a variety of topics including app development and technology.