Why do disaster recovery

Cloud-based data storage and related technologies enhance and simplify the process and add flexibility and scalability. The disaster recovery planning process can reduce the risk of human error, eliminate superfluous hardware, and streamline the entire IT process. In this way, the planning process itself becomes one of the advantages of disaster recovery planning, streamlining the business, and rendering it more profitable and resilient before anything ever goes wrong.

There are several steps in the development of a disaster recovery plan. Although these may vary somewhat based on the organization, here are the basic disaster recovery plan steps:.

Risk assessment First, perform a risk assessment and business impact analysis BIA that addresses many potential disasters. Robust disaster recovery plans set goals by evaluating risks up front, as part of the larger business continuity plan, to allow critical business operations to continue for customers and users as IT addresses the event and its fallout.

Consider infrastructure and geographical risk factors in your risk analysis. For example, the ability of employees to access the data center in case of a natural disaster, whether or not you use cloud backup, and whether you have a single site or multiple sites are all relevant here. Evaluate critical needs Next, establish priorities for operations and processing by evaluating the critical needs of each department.

Prepare written agreements for selected alternatives, and include details specifying all special security procedures, availability, cost, duration, guarantee of compatibility, hours of operation, what constitutes an emergency, non-mainframe resource requirements, system testing, termination conditions, a procedure notifying users of system changes, personnel requirements, specs on required processing hardware and other equipment, a service extension negotiation process, and other contractual issues.

Set disaster recovery plan objectives Create a list of mission-critical operations to plan for business continuity, and then determine which data, applications, equipment, or user accesses are necessary to support those functions. This is the target amount of time in hours, minutes, or seconds an operation or application can be offline without an unacceptable business impact.

Determine the recovery point objective RPO , or the point in time back to which you must recover the application. This is essentially the amount of data the organization can afford to lose. Assess any service level agreements SLAs that your organization has promised to users, executives, or other stakeholders.

Collect data and create the written document Collect data for your plan using pre-formatted forms as needed. Data to collect in this stage may include:. Test and revise Next, develop criteria and procedures for testing the plan. This is essential to ensure the organization has adopted compatible, feasible backup procedures and facilities, and to identify areas that should be modified.

It also allows the team to be trained, and proves the value of the DRP and ability of the organization to withstand disasters. Finally, test the plan based on the criteria and procedures. Conduct an initial dry run or structured walk-through test and correct any problems, ideally outside normal operational hours.

Types of business disaster recovery plan tests include: disaster recovery plan checklist tests, full interruption tests, parallel tests, and simulation tests.

The recovery point objective, or RPO, refers to how much data in terms of the most recent changes the company is willing to lose after a disaster occurs. To compare RPO and RTO, consider that RPO means a variable amount of data that would need to be re-entered after a loss or would be lost altogether during network downtime. In contrast, RTO refers to how much real time can elapse before the disruption unacceptably impedes normal business operations.

It is important to expose the gap between actuals and objectives set forth in the disaster recovery plan. Refining these differences brings the plan up to speed. Traditional on-premises recovery strategies The IT team should develop disaster recovery strategies for IT applications, systems, and data.

This includes desktops, data, networks, connectivity, servers, wireless devices, and laptops. These are just a couple of scenarios that could be anticipated and addressed in a disaster planning strategy.

Clients today expect nothing short of perfection and reliability. They are not forgiving in the case of failures or downtime. When a certain business cannot meet their expectations, clients will simply move on to another service provider. Disaster recovery planning enables businesses to maintain a high service quality, regardless of the circumstances. Reacquiring an old customer in the aftermath of an IT disaster can be nearly impossible — a disastrous effect that so many businesses have experienced firsthand.

In some industries, customers will be affected heavily by downtime. This is especially true for B2B service providers. The integrity of your business will affect the integrity of client enterprises. As a result, a chain reaction can lead to the potential failure of multiple businesses and a degraded reputation. Reducing the risk of downtime and data loss means your clients can rest assured they will receive an adequate service even after disaster strikes.

As a result, investing in disaster recovery planning is one of the imperatives when it comes to sustainable customer retention. One of the key things you will have to do when planning disaster recovery is identifying innovative solutions. Technologies like cloud-based data storage and backups simplify the process of archive maintenance, enhance the effectiveness of backups and reduce the cost of disaster recovery. Because cloud options are easily scalable, they offer more flexibility than the maintenance of an onsite or offsite data center.

A switch can be completed far before a disaster strikes if ever and as the technical demands of the company adapt, so too will the storage solution being utilized. Disaster recovery planning begins with a thorough research and a comparison of possibilities.

Businesses who engage in such a strategic process can quickly uncover data storage solution that makes a lot more sense than the one being currently utilized and that can be tweaked on the go. Granular management The DR solution enables to manage replications in a granular way wich means restoration of data at file level or even smaller units , with tha aim of assuring a complete recovery of data and services.

No impact on performance Replication of business infrastructure on one or more Disaster Recovery sites ensure no impact on performance. Indeed, thanks to the activation of Disaster Recovery, systems are constantly online. Control and custmization of your own Disaster Recovery Tha last benefit we talk about is the chance to customize and monitor your own Disaster Recovery. With the personalization of DR solutions, you can choose the replication frequency and establish the best recovery times for your business.

In addition, you can control constantly your Disaster Recovery site. Do you want to know more about our Disaster Recovery solutions? Reserve a free consulting with our experts! Fill out the form and one of our experts will contact you within 24 hours : we look forward to meeting you!

This business advisory guide will arm you with 21 Revealing Questions you should ask any computer consultant before giving them access to your network.

NE Albuquerque, NM Back to posts. For many businesses, it would be a significant problem, leading to a loss in profits and possibly even needing to close the business. Natural Disasters Mother Nature can be cruel. Hardware Failure Whether from a power surge or other cause, if your hardware fails it can take all your data with it. Human Errors No one is perfect, and that includes you and your employees.

Cyber Crimes Unfortunately, cyber crimes are on the rise and most businesses are affected at some point. Customer Service Ultimately, you need a disaster recover y plan to provide your customers the service they have come to expect from you. Find me on:. Subscribe to our newsletter Subscribe Now.