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What is Disaster Recovery? The Need for Business Continuity Planning

We often get the question”What is disaster recovery?” and we are surprised how many companies could do a better job of answering it for their workforce. That is, they may have a plan in place but not share it with their employees, or their plan may be outdated and not include the current mix of online and offline systems that their organization operates on a daily basis.

Disaster Recovery Definition

Disaster recovery refers to what a company will do, especially with its information systems, in the aftermath of an adverse event to quickly recover and resume to normal business operations. Any time that an unexpected event, (i.e. a data security breach or a natural disaster) occurs and interrupts the normal operations of a business, it could lose money. The damage could occur in a few minutes or a few hours. Some companies have died a quick death after a catastrophic event.

When Disaster Strikes

When disaster strikes, the need to stop the bleeding becomes urgent. After a disaster, employees get stressed out and find it hard to make the best decisions, often with fewer resources. IT is where there can be extensive damage. Without a backup system in place, it can take days for your organization to restore normal operations. Meanwhile, customers will start to feel frustrated, and some of them may go to a competitor and never return to your company.

Disaster Recovery Testing: 3 Ways MSPs Map IT Risk Points

A Little Background

We live in an Internet-of-Things (IOT) world. Consumers demand the best from their favorite brands. Sharon Goldman’s recent article on CIO.com explained it best: “For retailers, technology, strategy and customer experience are now intertwined. Everything revolves around keeping up with consumer expectations for a seamless experience both online and offline, across channels and devices.” Essentially, your customers may not be so forgiving when you are unable to deliver your products or services in a timely manner.

Working with Managed IT Services

When you work with managed IT services provider that provides disaster recovery services, the provider ensures that backups exist for all of your data systems. For instance, at CompuData, our backup solutions go beyond the traditional tape backup to include virtualized snapshots of your data with data storage redundancies at multiple data centers.

Additionally, your Managed IT service provider should also provide a recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery time point objective (RPO) that suits your specific business needs. Your business continuity and restoration plan should involve a thorough analysis of your current business operating systems, data storage practices along with a quick fix plan that provides as little disruption as possible in case of disaster.

What’s the Business Continuity Criteria for Your Backup Solution?

Why You Want to Have a Disaster Recovery Plan

To compete in the IoT world, an organization must plan for disaster recovery. Customers expect to have constant access to your website, your mobile apps, and your customer service hotline. They don’t want to wait for answers to their questions or to finalize their transactions. If you operate ’round-the-clock services, having a business continuity plan is even more crucial. Your IT systems are especially vulnerable to failure in the event of a disaster, and having a plan for recovery gives employees enough directions to begin recovery efforts. They must know what to do in the aftermath of the event. Planning in advance helps your organization minimize temporary and long-term effects on customers.

Prevention Helps

It’s easy to read this post and feel discouraged that a data breach, an earthquake, a fire, or a hurricane could cripple your company. While a catastrophe could happen, remember this is why you carry property damage insurance. You can also purchase special insurance for disaster recovery and specifically for losses to IT systems. But building a long-term partnership with a managed IT services provider will help ensure all of your data gets backed up daily, hourly or even up-to-the minute – depending on your business needs. Offering value-add that all stakeholders will appreciate – peace of mind.


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