A business’s data is extremely important and sometimes no matter how much you try to protect it, accidents still happen. That’s when backup and disaster recovery protocols becomes a life saver.
Difference between disaster recovery and cloud backup
- Cloud backups make regular copies of your data at planned intervals
- Cloud backups store your data securely at an offsite location
- You don’t need to purchase additional equipment or find space in your office for cloud backups
- Disaster recovery is a plan you’ve made for getting your business back up and running if it has been compromised.
- Disaster Recovery requires a set of tools, rules and procedures in order to regain your data
How to plan and set up your disaster recovery
1. Inspect your business
This should be the first step in implementing your disaster recovery for your business. You should look at the way your business uses its IT systems and how that might be affected if it was compromised.
Areas to examine are email, online systems, office data and office telephony systems. For each areas, think about how important it is in the day-to-day running of the business, how prone it might be to attacks and if your business can survive for a short period of time without it.
The whole point of the business continuity plan is to be able to focus on the important areas and determine the best way to re-establish them.
2. Identify your risks
Risks are usually divided into two categories – Natural and Man-made. Depending on the nature of your business and your location the type of risks to your IT systems can be different and should be considered when putting together your disaster recovery plan.
Types of natural disasters include: earthquakes, hurricanes, storms, floods, and tsunamis. Man-made disasters include: fraud, hacking, errors in software, personnel strikes, terrorism, fires, hardware failure, power failures, human error, and Internet connection failure.
Therefore, knowing how your system might be compromised, can allow you to plan accordingly.
3. Make sure your backups align with your disaster recovery strategy
Firstly assess how likely certain disasters are to occur. For instance, if your office is based in London, the chances of a tsunamis is very unlikely but if you’re based in san Francisco, where earthquakes are more common, you should have a contingency plan for when the earthquake hits.
Using cloud backup will minimise the amount of data you loose if and when it’s compromised. If you’re on our hosted desktop, this won’t effect your data or general working of business. You’ll be able to work from home instead.
4. Put together your go-to team
Have a team ready, so you know who to go to when the disaster hits. For PCW Solutions customers, you can call our team of experts and they can help you start the process of retrieving your lost or compromised data. It’s also a good idea to appoint one member of the staff to lead the recovery operation.
5. Draw up your disaster recovery plan
Once you know all aspects to consider you can start to draw up your plan. This document is what will guide and help you through the disaster. Make sure it’s clear and well-written and your IT company has given you a copy that can be distributed to the relevant people within your business. Also keep a digital copy in a safe place!
What to include in your report will be individual to your business, but here are some points to consider:
- Which systems will be prioritised?
- Who will need to be notified?
- Who is responsible for implementing the plan?
- How will you get new equipment, if required?
6. Test to see if the plan works
This is actually an important last step. You want to know that your plan is substantial before the disaster occurs. Do a run-through of your recovery plan with the relevant members of staff and amend any thing that’s necessary.
Read our last article on Access Your Devices Remotely With LogMeIn Pro