Your business can respond to a crisis and take measures to stop damage and quickly resume operations with the use of an IT disaster recovery IT services plan. Do you have one in place? Disaster recovery is a method of regaining access and functionality to its IT infrastructure after events like a natural disaster or a cyber attack.
Disaster recovery depends upon the replication of data and computer processing in an off-premises location not affected by the disaster. When servers go down because of an attack, natural disaster, or equipment, a business needs to recover lost data from a second location where the data is backed up.
Ideally, an organization can transfer its computer processing to that remote location as well in order to continue operations and increase data protection.
The typical structure of a disaster recovery IT services plan should include:
- Goals –what the business hopes to do in the event of a disaster, including the Recovery Time Object (RTO), the maximum length of downtime permitted for each crucial system, and the Recovery Point Object (RPO), the most acceptable level of data loss.
- Personnel – responsible for executing the IT disaster recovery plan.
- IT inventory – list hardware and software assets, their criticality, and whether they are leased, owned or used as a service.
- Backup procedures – how and where (exactly on which devices and in which folders) each data resource is backed up, and how to recover from backup.
- Disaster recovery procedures – emergency response to limit damages, last-minute backups, mitigation and eradication (for cybersecurity threats).
- Disaster recovery sites – a robust DR plan includes a hot disaster recovery site – an alternative data center in a remote location that has all critical systems, with data replicated or frequently backed up to them. Operations can be switched over to the hot site when disaster strikes.
- Restoration – procedures for recovering from complete systems loss to full operations.
No organization can afford to not be prepared. The two most important benefits of having a disaster recovery IT services plan in place are:
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- Cost savings: Planning for potentially disruptive events can save a huge amount of money and even mean the difference between a company surviving a natural disaster or folding.
- Faster recovery: Depending on the disaster recovery strategy and the types of disaster recovery tools used, businesses can recover much faster after a disaster, or even continue operations as if nothing had happened.
The biggest mistake most businesses make is waiting until after a disaster strikes to figure out what to do next. Statistically, that can be a death sentence for a business. No one has ever gotten into trouble for being overly prepared, but many businesses have failed because they weren’t able to recover from a catastrophic event.
Don’t wait! Developing a comprehensive disaster recovery IT services plan is a huge undertaking that could take several months but don’t let that stop you. If you must, start with an interim plan that covers just the basics and grow from there.
Need some help? Talk to a Reis representative to learn how we can help with your data redundancy plan for the unexpected.
Source:
https://www.mimecast.com/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-it-disaster-recovery/
https://cloudian.com/guides/disaster-recovery/it-disaster-recovery-plan/
