Disasters are scary to even think about, let alone happen for real. Perhaps a malfunctioning flash drive with some unimportant data won’t exactly ruin your day, but the crash of an enormous database containing information about hundreds of clients is a positive nightmare. Preventing such dreadful scenarios is always the best strategy, but what happens if things get out of control?
For companies, having a recovery plan is more than a mere necessity. Planning and executing it might seem like a daunting task, but for qualified experts, it’s a walk in the park. It takes knowing your business well, its chief operations, hardware, and software, to be able to construct a well-defined plan and activate it if the need arises. Just like in every other field, the answer lies in careful preparation. Visit this website to learn more.
A Brief Definition
Essentially, disaster recovery plans, also known as DRPs, are combinations of policies, procedures, and tools meant to help companies in an unfortunate event. Naturally, the aim is to recover the existing IT infrastructure as much as possible and use the opportunity to observe its faults to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.
History shows that the majority of these disasters are man-made. They can happen out of inexperience, carelessness, incompetence – the reasons are many and varied. Also, they can be intentional, as in the case of cyber-criminals and terrorists, whose threats and actions can do immeasurable damage. Of course, disasters also happen due to faulty equipment or natural events like fires and floods, and there’s simply no one to blame.
Whatever the source, breakdowns require immediate action, and a meticulously constructed recovery plan is by far the most effective solution. Let’s have a look at some aspects that are part of every serious and well-constructed recovery plan.
Staff Training
Keeping the employees aware of IT disasters and, more importantly, what to do about them, is a crucial task for every manager. It’s easy to panic and lose your head when things go awry, but to react effectively takes reasoning and heavy preparation. Assigning roles once the disaster strikes are way too late; you need to complete the training when things are in order and everyone’s relaxed and focused. Go to https://www.toolbox.com/it-security/vulnerability-management/articles/what-is-disaster-recovery/ for more information.
Now, if the company’s outsourcing technical support, talking to your personnel about IT protection becomes even more important. This is because someone might try and recover data by themselves, clashing with actions undertaken by your tech support service. Once again, everyone should be fully aware of their responsibilities so that the plan can be executed as quickly and efficiently as possible.
In the case of successful data recovery, it’s always advisable to point out individual contributions. Encouraging or even rewarding the deserving employees with a bonus or raise can increase their productivity and stimulate them to invest themselves even more in the future.
Backup Management
The core of every DRP is to backup your critical data (ideally, all of it) on multiple locations to ensure maximum security, regardless of how serious the disaster is. Of course, you can’t achieve this in ten minutes – it takes careful inspection of your IT assets to know what to do with them. Support services have ways of assessing your IT department to the very last byte, using the analysis as a basis for constructing the recovery plan. Once they have all the information, the rest is more or less a routine procedure.
Usually, IT professionals employ physical data centers located outside your premises. Redundancy is an excellent way of ensuring that your most sensitive information remains intact. Besides data centers, they can also do backups in a cloud. Besides being extremely safe, this is generally considered the most cost-effective approach, so more and more business owners opt for cloud-based backups as the ultimate protection of their assets.
The Value of Metrics
The more precise your calculations are, the more effective your recovery plan will turn out. Numbers are everything in IT; the entire technology is built on ones and zeros, after all. Time is essential during emergencies, so you need to define a few objectives related to the DRP.
Out of these, the most vital one is probably the recovery time objective, known as RTO. This is usually in response to the management’s demands, who often ask when the business can continue as normal. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes longer to complete the IT disaster recovery plan, resulting in downtime and financial losses. It takes experience to assess time objectives precisely.
When IT support teams are pressured to finish the job sooner than expected, they might reasonably ask for more money. After all, they invest their knowledge, expertise, equipment, data centers, etc. It’s recommendable to discuss all these matters beforehand to avoid unwelcome surprises in the case of an emergency, so you’ll know exactly where you stand if a disaster strikes.
Tests and Response Teams
Just like in the event of a fire or an earthquake, you should make an effort if possible to test the recovery procedures. If the employees complete the different stages, they’ll be much more secure and prepared for the real thing. It shouldn’t feel like a burden; on the contrary, if you care to explain the importance of successful data recovery, your staff will be much more understanding and willing to participate.
Response teams are another thing to consider. Putting people in small groups than can focus on individual parts of the recovery process will accelerate it tremendously. Each group could contact the IT service and ask for crucial information and time objectives, so they’ll know when their department can be up and running. Click here for more.
Final Thoughts
It’s in everyone’s best interest to conduct a disaster recovery plan that is cost-effective, practical, and all-encompassing. Data loss can be highly frustrating for your employees, and many can feel terrible guilt even if they’re not directly responsible.
Putting in the time to construct an elaborate recovery plan is simply a must for any modern company that takes itself seriously. Your clients’ trust is the most valuable thing in the business world, and once it’s earned, you should do everything you can to keep it.
Marziano is a seasoned tech expert with over 15 years of experience in the industry. Holding a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and multiple certifications, including CompTIA A+, Network+, and Cisco’s CCNA, he has a well-rounded and robust understanding of various aspects of technology.
