If you don’t have a backup and disaster recovery (BDR) plan in place for your technology, you could be closer to a major IT crisis than you know. That’s because “disasters” are everywhere. Along with the kinds of tragedies you see on the news, everyday calamities like power outages, electrical surges, hard drive failures, and simple employee mistakes can all shut your business down in seconds.
In some cases, though, having an inadequate BDR plan can be worse than having none at all, as it might leave you with a false sense of security. That’s because good BDR involves many overlapping layers of protection, each of which is necessary to keep your company covered.
To show you why this is so important, let’s take a look at a few things every business owner should think about…
Hope is Not a Plan
To start with the obvious, simply hoping that nothing happens to your technology isn’t a very good plan. Everyday mishaps get their name because they happen every single day. If you just hope that everything is going to work the way it’s supposed to when you press the power button on your computer, you’re going to be shocked someday when it doesn’t. Anticipate that you’re going to have some kind of IT problem sooner or later, and prepare for the eventuality.
The Right Equipment and Location Matter
A lot of business owners keep extra hard drives, or even tape backup drives, inside their offices with copies of important files as a hedge against disaster. That’s better than nothing, but it won’t do you much good if the disaster affects your entire facility. To get real protection from IT emergencies, you need backups that are encrypted and stored in a remote location that won’t be affected if something happens to your location.
Timing is Everything
The best BDR systems work on an almost continual basis. That means new backups are being run daily, if not hourly. In some companies, losing a day’s worth of data, or several, could be disastrous. Things like new invoices, sales receipts, and financial records could all be lost. You need to know that your saved files will be current and up-to-date if you ever need to rely on them in a pinch.
Testing, Testing
Regular testing is an often-overlooked part of the backup and recovery process. If you aren’t sure your emergency files can be recovered and put into place when you actually need them, then how valuable are they as an insurance policy? Your plan should include lots of tests so you’ll have the peace of mind to know that your data will be there waiting once the recovery process starts.
Don’t Forget the Plan Part
Good BDR isn’t just about having extra copies of your files – you also need a written plan to restore them and get your company up-and-running in the event of an IT emergency. Your plan should be detailed enough so you know exactly who to call and what to say when you’re facing a crisis. And, it should be printed out, with a hard copy stored in your IT vendor’s office, for obvious reasons.
If you don’t have a solid data backup and recovery plan in place already, now is the time to think about getting the protection you need. Call our office today, and let us put together a quote that includes a comprehensive BDR plan for your business!