Disaster recovery : Do you have a plan?
Disaster recovery can sometimes be a little confusing. It can mean different things to different people. It can, for some, just mean having their data backed up while others look at disaster recovery as being able to work from another office and still be able to access core data and systems.
However, as many of us know, disaster can unfortunately strike at any time no matter how careful you are with your systems and processes. Below we look at a few examples on just why you need a disaster recovery plan in place.
1 Basic Human error:
Everyone makes mistakes from time to time no one is perfect! Keeping that in mind it’s important to not only rely on human interaction but also to have a scheduled back up in place so that at most you would only potentially lose a few hours of recent data.
2 Location:
We hope you are never the victim of a fire, flood or other unlikely disaster but we unfortunately have seen it happen and it’s something we know businesses must be prepared for. If your business suffered one of these disasters would your business be able to carry on operating? You need a disaster recovery plan in place. By scheduling a backup you can replicate data off-site to another office or data centre which allows employees and you to be able to access data and keep the business operating.
3 How fast can you get back up and running?
If disaster does strike how fast would it take for you to carry on with operating your business?
Redundant hardware – storage of computer components for example spare hard drives and power supplies. You could even have redundant network equipment. However redundant hardware can be an expensive solution to improving recovery times as some of the spare parts may never be needed.
Fail over – Having a robust system with no single point of failure such as multiple servers can help to provide a temporary work environment whilst replacement equipment is supplied and installed.
Off-site back up – Having data stored at an offsite location means that in the event of a disaster that destroys local data stores such as a fire or ransomware attacks your files will be available for recovery . Offsite backups tend to be one day behind
If you are concerned or just need advice about disaster recovery why not give us a call 0345 319 4887 or send us an email here.
