We have all been there. A computer crashes, the hard drive is damaged, and important files are somehow missing. It is a maddening experience. But if you are a business owner, data loss can be devastating. In fact, business continuity statistics indicate that when companies lose all data, 43% remain closed and 29% will close in the next two years. Don’t let this happen to you! Disaster recovery services protect your data against natural disasters such as fire, flood or earthquake, and against man-made disasters, whether accidental or malicious.
A good disaster recovery service provider creates a business continuity plan, which assesses a company’s risk of internal and external threats and data loss. You will then implement three types of measures to protect yourself against harm. Preventive measures prevent disastrous events from happening in the first place. Detective measures are aimed at finding and stopping disastrous events. Finally, corrective measures are aimed at repairing the effects of the disaster once it has occurred.
First, a disaster recovery specialist will do a Business Impact Analysis (BIA) in which he analyzes the different functions of a company and rates them as critical and non-critical. Critical functions are those that are vital to the operation of the business or those that are considered critical by law. For each of these critical functions, you then determine the recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO) for your business. The RPO determines the maximum amount of time required to find the first character of the stored data. The RTO is the maximum amount of time data can be lost before serious business damage occurs.
It then determines the steps required to restore critical business operations. Different steps may be needed for different types of disasters. Disaster recovery services will design protocols for fires, floods, earthquakes, power outages, viruses, theft, cyber terrorism, and wars, among others. A good business continuity plan has several different scenarios that dictate how to deal with various catastrophes, and these plans are put to the test. Disaster Recovery Services will continue to work with a business to ensure that the business continuity plan remains in place and evolves to meet the needs of the business. This involves updating the company manual and periodic testing of the organizational policies and procedures used in emergency situations. In the realm of computers, it also involves checking for viruses and ensuring that all hardware, applications, and data are running smoothly.
Don’t leave your business unprotected. Contact a disaster recovery services expert to establish a business continuity plan. Like insurance, you hope you never need it, but if you do, you’ll be glad it’s there.