Disaster Recovery
Pretty much all of our disaster recovery clients have the same core need: “Get us back up to full speed, as soon as humanly possible.”
The first step is to choose an IT provider to work with in order to set out a detailed disaster recovery plan BEFORE you have a disaster on your hands.
Serving Canada and USA, we give our clients disaster recovery services that work for their business and their budget.
At the core of this is putting into play a rock solid backup and cloud plan. This puts your valuable digital assets online, which means they’re accessible if your on-site resources fail for any reason.
THIS WAY YOU CAN QUICKLY RECOVER AND ACCESS THINGS LIKE:
- HR Personnel Files: Nobody wants to lose payroll or tax information
- Invoices: Your accounting team will thank you
- Documents: These are the easiest things to back up, and what your staff needs the most
- Complete servers and workstations in minutes
CONSIDER TESTING DISASTER RECOVERY IN YOUR ANNUAL REVIEW
The business may have the best disaster and recovery plan known to man. However, that means nothing if it doesn’t work when needed the most.
That’s why it’s important to test out disaster recovery plans at least once a year. This testing determines whether the plan works and if it doesn’t, what can be done to fix it.
THERE ARE THREE STEPS TO TESTING A DISASTER RECOVERY PLAN
The first step is reviewing the plan. During the review, a team consisting of the person who has authored the plan and the people who will be carrying it out discuss what’s missing and what needs to be updated in it. They need to examine the plan very carefully to ensure that they don’t overlook something which could turn out to be crucial later.
The second step is running a tabletop exercise. In a tabletop exercise, the team gathers to demonstrate what to do in an emergency. They pretend that a disaster has befallen the company, and team members take turns explaining what actions they would take in this event. A tabletop exercise is an essential component of disaster recovery testing. It shows whether team members are knowledgeable and prepared to handle a crisis.
Finally, the team runs a simulation of a disaster. This differs from the tabletop exercise because the team uses business resources such as computers and the corporate network to test the disaster recovery plan. The team formulates a scenario and tests how they would handle the situation if it occurred in real life. During the simulation, team members might go offsite to restart networks or other business functions.
TEST WHETHER YOUR DISASTER PLAN HAS SUCCEED
While it’s important to test your disaster recovery plan at least once a year, it’s even more critical to see how the team responds to the test. If they are able to deal with one scenario, give them a more difficult situation. Should the team fail to restore mission-critical business systems in that scenario, evaluate what went wrong and how to improve the response to the disaster.
The point of performing a test is to reveal problems and solve them before something goes wrong in real life. Did the team sail through the test? That’s when you need to be suspicious.
75% OF BUSINESS OWNERS DON’T HAVE A BUSINESS RECOVERY PLAN
All types of businesses are exposed to disaster risks, including fires, earthquakes, floods, and other types of catastrophes. The most affected tend to be small businesses, which tend to operate on thinner margins than their larger competitors. Despite the fact that many businesses are exposed to threats, few have even a basic plan of action in the event of a disaster.
SURVEY SUGGESTS A BLEAK OUTLOOK
Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company hired Harris Interactive to perform a survey with 500 small businesses across the United States, all of which employ 300 or less staff.
A whopping 75 percent of small business owners have no disaster recovery plan whatsoever while 52 percent believe it would take three months or longer to reopen after a cataclysmic event. Businesses with fewer than 50 employees are even less prepared, as less than one in five of these businesses have a disaster recovery plan.
The truth of the matter is that 25 percent of enterprises suffering through a disaster end up not being able to reopen for business. Nonetheless, 38 percent of all small business owners don’t consider a recovery plan to be of any importance at all.
Interestingly, only 26 percent of business owners consider the probability of a disaster in their area as slim, suggesting more small business owners would take recovery plans seriously.
DISASTER RECOVERY BASICS
One of the best ways to protect the business against general catastrophe is through the purchase of business interruption insurance. Keeping the power going if the energy shuts off usually requires a simple generator. Unfortunately, 44 percent of businesses don’t have generators and 66 percent haven’t invested in interruption insurance.
For many businesses, the most important resource that may be destroyed in a disaster is their information. If computers, servers, and other data storage are destroyed during a catastrophe, business recovery insurance and generators won’t do a thing. What will help is the implementation of IT systems that provide data redundancy through off-site backups.
Using cloud storage systems and other methods, businesses can set up safe, secure backups outside of the influence of disasters. Through encrypted online databases accessible over the internet, business owners can enjoy the peace of mind knowing that valuable data will survive the physical destruction of their computer systems.
Not all businesses have the time, money, and know-how to set up redundant IT systems that are resistant to disasters. Companies such as The Soft Wave are experienced in providing IT outsourcing services that include a wide range of remedies, including secure data backups that help businesses recover quickly from unfortunate events.
SECURE THE BUSINESS DATA
Today, it’s extremely important for companies to ensure that their data is secure. Considering that most people lack the knowledge and time to properly ensure the safety of a company’s data, it’s wise to leave this task to professionals.
At The Soft Wave, we help companies small and large protect their digital information from getting into the wrong hands. We can handle all of the technical set up and back up that needs to be confidential to keep the business safe, while you can focus on the business itself.
Learn more about how our IT security services can support your company, or contact us to request a free quote, and start feeling more secure.
FOUR MISTAKES THAT MAKE THE DISASTER RECOVERY PLAN USELESS
This scenario might sound familiar as many of us have spent time and effort creating a disaster recovery plan being proud of the work that has been put into it. But what if you found out that there were mistakes that rendered all of that planning absolutely useless?