The summer months can be a stressful time of year for data storage administrators in certain parts of the country. While their colleagues are enjoying the beach, some IT professionals may have their eyes on the weather map, hoping the next storm misses them.

According to a recent report from the News-Press of Fort Myers, Florida, this time of year, known in some places as hurricane season, is when data backup solutions are most needed.

"If you'd like the assurance that should your hard drive fail you'd not experience for even a nanosecond the inconvenience of not being able to compute, consider [implementing a backup strategy]," contributor Al Winchell wrote for the newspaper.

Many companies will want to explore the use of online backup. By backing up data in the cloud, IT administrators can be confident the information will remain accessible and easily restored even should a natural disaster wipe out the on-premise IT infrastructure.

Experts at the Structure 2011 conference hosted by GigaOm in June agreed that the cloud has proven to be an effective solution for backing up data. While the technology may not quite be ready for primary storage, companies should still explore the use of online backup.