Disaster Recovery Plans – Does Your Business Have One?
Many businesses risk grave losses due to failures and disasters yet continue to depend on un-validated tape backups should they need to recover from a major outage. Implementing a disaster recovery plan can be time consuming and daunting; to the point which many simply put it off.
Through some basic steps, businesses can better protect themselves against catastrophic data loss, these steps include:
- · Why do I need a Disaster Recovery Plan (DR) plan?
- · Defining and planning
- · Implementation
- · Testing
There are numerous disasters that could befall any business at any time in reality, and most of these will be unforeseen, the UK has in recent times suffered from unprecedented floods and in the US ice storms and power failures are the most recent issues, all the more reason for ensuring you have a disaster recovery plan of some description ready to roll out.
One of the most important aspects of a disaster recovery program is to ascertain what are the critical elements of your business. This will vary from business to business so for some it could be to ensure that data subject to long term availability due to legislation is always protected and for others it could be that the value of the business is held in the company CRM database. Whatever the case make sure your DR plan encompasses your most valuable assets at the very least.
Another important aspect of your plan should be that the business downtime should be a short as possible, an hour lost in a small business with a few employees can be manageable but if you have hundreds of employees then even an hour downtime is equivalent to weeks of lost work cumilitavely.
Remote data backup is a useful tool to have in your disaster recovery portfolio. Many companies will have data and tape back up data stored on company premises. In the event of a major catastrophe such as a fire all company data could be lost. Utilising offsite remote data backup ensure that data is still safe and could even be accessed from another location if required.
No two companies are the same; it pays to plan your implementation. A documented project plan can help with your disaster recovery procedures, A project plan allows it to be broken down into more manageable chunks. With proper planning you can avoid some of the pitfalls and ensure nothing in left unaccounted for and will prevent having to go back.
And last but not least test test test! Sadly numerous stories abound of companies that have set up a DR plan of sorts then simply assumed it would work. You need to ensure your plan is robust and tested on a regular basis to ensure key personnel are practiced in its implementation.
Disaster recovery planning, data recovery service and online data backup protocols should be in place for every business that has critical business data and systems. Don’t wait until it is to late and disaster has already struck.
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