Is Your Data Disaster Recovery Plan 100%
Ready to Implement?

Dealing with data disaster can be a nightmare, especially if a recovery plan has not been put in place. Whether it affects your computer network, RAID arrays, servers, or basic hard drives, data loss can bring your business to a complete stand still. If your business has not put a data disaster recovery plan in place or your plan has fallen short, then finding a fast reliable, data recovery specialists, from the many recovery services will be a priority.

If your organization has planned ahead and put a comprehensive data recovery plan in place, recovery should be relatively straight forward and your business should remain relatively intact.

Data disaster recovery - Definition

Fires, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, power surges, viruses, internal espionage and hardware failures can all be classed as disasters and can each have a devastating effect on a business and its assets.

The disaster may result in days, weeks or even years of time consuming work being permanently lost if a backup system was not in place. Established and secure businesses close down every year because they did not plan for such emergencies.

In its worst form fires, floods, hurricanes and earthquakes can all be devastating to both people, families and businesses, terrorist attacks can wipe out key personnel, flatten business premises, sever networks and communication systems, leave passwords unknown; lost with the personnel and if your data is only backed up in one place it could mean the end of your business. Luckily catastrophic disasters are rare and hopefully will never happen to you, nobody knows what the future will bring so being prepared is like having an insurance policy that you will never need to claim on.

In its mildest form the definition of a data disaster may mean that a power surge has damaged an essential electronic control system inside hardware or a problem has occurred with a physical internal hard drive component that may have damaged your system making your data irretrievable or inaccessible. A project that you or a team, have worked on for weeks, maybe in the balance and although you intended to backup the data, it was a manual task and you simply haven’t had time. It may cost a fortune in lost time and contractual agreements if that data is lost for good.

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Most businesses have a system for storing data using either digital tape or disk media and should also have proven and reliable remote data backup system in place. In the case of media damage tape system or drive failure the services of a hard disk data recovery specialist may be required to restore vital operating database hardware or software.

Data Disaster Recovery Plan

If you think that you are unique in not preparing a data disaster recovery plan, don’t because you’re not alone, statistics show that 95% of businesses do not have an effective reliable and up to date, data disaster recovery plan in place for an emergency situation. A well organized company should have an effective continuity planning strategy set in place so when an emergency occurs damage is limited and recovery is organized, reasonably smooth and stress free.

It is vital for any organization that wishes to remain in business after a disaster to put a business continuity and disaster recovery planning system in place.The plan would include evaluating the impact of every conceivable possibility that could occur in the event of a disaster from earthquakes to fires to hard drive failures.

The willingness and involvement of management is vital to allow the necessary resources to set up a continuity plan.This would include forming a disaster recovery committee, nominating leaders and staff for key roles in all areas of the organization. Whether dealing with the corporate world or any organization the implications of data privacy and therefore data security is of paramount importance.

When using remote backup the physical security of the backup media and its location must be considered for the possibilities of all disasters, the premises must be evaluated to ensure your backup storage is also protected from floods, fires and other natural disasters. The fire suppression systems should use media friendly gasses rather than water and the premises should be open for inspection before any backup arrangements are set in place.

The disaster recovery plan, once completed, must have a periodic test and update procedure so that changes in staff or management, expansion of the business or changes in the IT infrastructure are all current. Keeping up to date by testing business continuity plans has shown to be a weakness in most businesses, both large and small.

A company that ignores or neglects the need for a data disaster recovery plan may be surviving on thin ice, whether they know it or not.

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If you have not already considered
using secure online backup and
storage services for your business,
then take a serious look now.

The protection and peace of mind
you can get from online backup
and storage can be unbeatable.

Most businesses have not even
considered the real impact of a data disaster occurrence.