Does your business have a data backup and recovery plan in place as a safeguard against disaster? Have you thought about how losing access to your network and data would affect your business or if you could continue daily operations?
Unless you have a solid plan that includes data backup as well as a plan for recovery and business continuity, your business could be vulnerable during the next disaster. Techspert Data wants to help you better understand how different types of disasters can affect your business as well as the various ways to protect against these issues.
Continue reading for helpful insights and to understand the importance of data backup and recovery.
Defining “Disaster”
In most instances, the word disaster indicates an unexpected event that disrupts daily life, damages property, or causes the loss of life. In the world of Information Technology, the word disaster includes any event that causes your network to slow, disruption of services, data deletion, or otherwise interrupts the daily operations of businesses.
An IT disaster can include natural disasters like tornadoes, flooding, and earthquakes. IT disasters may also include cyberattacks, critical infrastructure or hardware failure, terror attacks, building incidents such as a fire, and either localized or widespread power outages.
There’s no way of knowing if, when, or the type of disaster that may affect you. Additionally, there is no way to know the exact consequences of any disaster. Although you may find this uncertainty unnerving, there are a few ways to prepare for a disaster and minimize the possible negative impacts.
Methods of Data Backup
One of the best ways to prepare your business for a disaster is by performing regular backups. There are a few different methods that you might choose to use including full backups, differential backups, and incremental backups.
- Full backups make a copy of every piece of information that is stored in your system. This copy is conveniently placed into a single file, allowing for a simple restoration if needed
- Differential backups copy and store files that have changed since the last full backup and requires much less space than a full backup but is usually slower to restore
- Incremental backups copy any information that has changed since either the last full or differential backup. These backups require far less space than differential and full backups but are also much slower to restore.
Aside from deciding on how you’ll back up your data, you’ll also want to establish a frequency at which the backups should occur as well as where the information will be stored.
In an ideal recovery plan, your backups are stored either off-site or in the cloud. This is to help minimize the chances of your backups being affected by the same disaster that you’re preparing for while also helping to prevent theft.
Disaster Recovery Planning
Frequently updating your backups and storing them in a safe manner are the first steps to take when it comes to disaster recovery planning. It is probably safe to say that without having access to recent backups, a recovery plan will likely be inefficient or fail completely.
The failure of a recovery plan can mean the failure of your business – or at least large financial costs.
Successful recovery plans will consider two main factors: Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO). RPO is the amount of time since your last backup and allows you to consider how much data is lost between those backups. RTO is how much downtime your business can tolerate and expect to face after a disaster.
When building your disaster recovery plan, RPO and RTO are two of the most important measurements and can be used as a guide to help you determine which backup method and frequency is best for your business.
One of the best ways to improve your RPO and RTO is to increase the frequency of your backups. This isn’t an option for every business, but RTO can still be minimized by ensuring these elements of your recovery plan are in place:
- An easily accessible, printed version of your disaster recovery plan
- A list of critical infrastructure, beginning with the most important components
- Roles and responsibilities of the staff on your recovery team
- How your team will communicate
- Frequent testing to ensure all recovery plans are functional
Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail
Aside from considering the above factors, you’ll also want to consider how your business will return to normal after a disaster strikes and your recovery plan has been implemented. This is known as a business continuity plan and allows you to incorporate the other aspects of your company such as your emergency plans, finances, and personnel.
Strategizing your disaster recovery to include a business continuity plan will help to ensure that your business can survive almost any disruptive event. Although it’s possible for businesses to create a disaster recovery and business continuity plan without the help of professionals, the results may not always be as desired.
To ensure that your business has each aspect of the disaster recovery planning process covered, it is best to work with a team of professionals that has experience in this field.
Techspert Data can help you identify the best type and frequency of backups for your data, the best possible RTO and RPO parameters, and give you insights on business continuity planning. To begin strategizing your data backups and recovery plan, contact us today for a consultation.