Data Under Fire: Preparation Pointers to Panic-Proof Your Disaster Recovery

It’s every business’s worst nightmare: Disaster strikes, and they lose critical data and the ability to function. For some businesses that are not properly prepared, it could mean the end of the business entirely. For others, however, the risks can be mitigated through proper planning for potential disasters.

So how should you plan for disaster recovery?

Here are some pointers to help you develop a foolproof plan so that you will be able to react to disaster effectively and avoid preventable problems.

Carry Out a Risk Assessment

Carrying out a comprehensive risk assessment (RA) is the most important thing to do right at the start.

During this stage, the objective should be to determine the possible threats to your business, and decide which ones are most likely to occur. These could include:

• Storm damage
• Infrastructure damage
• Power cuts
• Flooding
• Site and server outage
• A ransomware attack

You will need to look through all of the potential dangers (for example, if you live in an area prone to earthquakes, damage to your premises would be a potential risk).

Not only should you look at the likelihood of potential risks, but you should also work out how dangerous each situation is for your business. Come up with possible scenarios and judge the impact that each would have on your business. If the consequences are particularly serious, you will need to have effective measures in place.

Use the Cloud

When it comes to effective backup and disaster recovery, you may want to turn to the cloud. Storing data in the cloud has many benefits, and customized cloud solutions can be ideal for protecting critical data whilst maintaining your productivity.

A Cloud Management Platform (CMP) and Cloud Recovery solutions from a trusted provider can give you peace of mind that your data will be safe should your premises be effected.

When considering a cloud solution, always find out who manages the data, how it is backed up, whether it can be lost, and what would happens if this happened. Spend some time looking into various solutions until you find a provider who you trust with your data.

More Than Just Backups

Backing up critical data is essential, and it should be an important element of any disaster recovery plan. However, don’t assume that backing up your data is all that is involved. Backups may not be immediately accessible, and they may not have the latest data, which can affect your recovery capabilities.

It will also be important to determine the recovery time objectives (RTO), and to know how long the business can run without data access. You’ll also need to establish recovery point objectives (RPOs).

Decide on Strategies

The disaster recovery strategies you implement will depend on your budget, resources, regulations, and other factors. The first type of measures to implement should be preventative measures. If you can prevent disaster from happening in the first place, this is the best course of action.

Such measures could involve backing up your data off-site, using surge protectors, training your staff and ensuring more than one person has the necessary skills, purchasing generators for power outages, and carrying out regular inspections.

In addition, you could implement measures that detect problems when they occur. This could include installing effective antivirus software to detect attacks as soon as they occur.

Lastly, you should consider measures that will be implemented following a disaster to fix the problems that occur. This could involve accessing your data stored off-site quickly and efficiently.

Determine Responsibilities

Who is responsible for what in the event of a disaster? This needs to be clearly defined in your plan. Who will recover the data? Who will initiate the plan following disaster? This is why documentation and training are so necessary. Do you have IT staff in various locations? Could you use third-party services? Everyone should be clear on their role.

Keep Assessing Your Plan

Once you have a plan in place, you should ensure that you assess it and test it continuously. Don’t just create your plan and leave it at that. Test it frequently because threats will change. The business will grow and change, and likely scenarios will change over time.

If you don’t test it properly, problems will not be uncovered. While a test can cause disruption, it needs to be done in order to establish that your plan is still effective.

Consider It an Investment

Disaster recovery planning may seem expensive, and often it involves a large cost. But it is essential, and you have to consider how expensive it would be if you failed to have a plan in place. So try to see it as an investment instead.

Plan Carefully for Potential Disasters

A comprehensive disaster recovery plan is something that every business should prepare, no matter how small. If you have yet to prepare a plan for your business for how to prepare for and react to a disaster, now is the time to do so. Having a plan in place that you test regularly will not only give you peace of mind, but it could very well help your business to survive in the event of a serious disaster.

Cameron Steele is knowledgeable when it comes to building and running a website, and indeed an online business in general. He gives helpful advice in his articles which appear around the web.