The ultimate disaster recovery cheat sheet: Part 2

Disaster Recovery 101: Backup Disaster Recovery Plans

Just as you want to know what’s going on with your employees and how to get your business up and going, you need to have a backup disaster recovery plan in place. A BDR (Backup and Disaster Recovery Plan) should always be in place. Additionally, you need to test it periodically so you know how well it is actually going to work when you need it the most.

You have some important questions to ask when it comes to getting your data back up and your systems up and running.

Are you currently backing data up? How much data would you lose if you had to rely on your last backup? What do you need to do in order to recover your data? Where is your data stored?

These have to be answered before you can even think about creating a Backup and Disaster Recovery Plan.

Obviously, your goal should be to restore as quickly as possible while losing as little data as possible.

Cloud Services

Consider what would happen if your data is stored in a server inside of your office that was subject to a fire or a flood. You would have lost everything because the server was damaged beyond repair.

Moving to the cloud allows you to store everything off-site, in the cloud. Various cloud services become available, allowing you to operate anywhere you have an internet connection. You can access your data, various software systems, and more.

The cloud is often what will allow you to keep running the business as usual. You can connect into your data to get anything you may need. CRM (customer relationship management) software, for example, will be stored in the cloud and give you access to all of your sales leads and your customer data. ERP (enterprise resource planning) software will allow you to manage your finances. All of this will help you to operate without being dependent on a specific work location.

Back-Ups

You can choose to back up directly to the cloud. Small business IT support services are available to help you decide on the best backup solution based on the data that you are working with. It can be automated, too, so you don’t have to remember to back up everything manually.

This way, if you do experience a disaster, you can rely on IT companies instead of an employee to handle the data recovery.

Disaster Recovery

You rely on your computer systems more than you think you do. If your laptops go down or your server malfunctions, you have to be prepared. With a disaster recovery plan, you can be sure that your system is updated and you get the most critical systems up and running as quickly as possible.

By working with a professional IT company, you can learn about the different procedures of recovery. Plus, you can focus on what really needs to happen without focusing too heavily on human error.

Your disaster recovery plan needs to consider such things as:

  • On-site and off-site backups
  • Cloud data center
  • Off-site replications

Quarterly planning and testing should take place as well. Too many businesses set their plan up and then forget about it. However, it needs to be stress tested from time to time to see just how well it works. If there are any weaknesses, you want to learn about them during a test, not during a real disaster.

You need to review how easy it is to recover files and how long it will take. Knowing all of this will help you in other aspects of your disaster recovery planning. For example, if it is going to take several hours for a system to get back up and running, you need to know what you can be doing until then, such as having a manual system in place to take orders or deal with customers who may be calling in.

If you can get your data and all of your systems up, it will allow you to continue with business as usual. However, you also need to make sure you have thought about your building and the basic procedures to recover from the disaster. It will ensure that you can start to generate revenue as quickly as possible.

If you want to learn more on how to be better prepared in case disaster strikes contact Kotori Technologies, LLC.