Tag - Disaster Recovery

How to Create a Basic Business Disaster Recovery Plan in 4 Steps

Loss of data is a common problem for businesses. Fortunately, it's a problem that can easily be avoided with the correct preparation. While devastating amounts of data can be lost during catastrophes like hurricanes, terrorist attacks, fires and floods - it doesn't take such large events to cause a business to lose important data. It can be as simple as dropping a laptop to the floor, or a power surge that results in burning out a storage device. If you don't have your crucial data backed up, even a small situation can turn into a disaster. That's when having a disaster recovery plan for your business can help.

The Statistics

If you still think natural disasters are the leading causes of data loss - and that the chances of it happening to you are pretty slim, take a look at the results from a study by Strategic Research Corporation of the leading causes of business continuity and disaster recovery incidents:
  • Hardware Failures (servers, switches, disk drives, etc) - 44%.
  • Human Error (mistakes in configurations, wrong commands issued, etc) 32%
  • Software Errors (operating systems, driver incompatibility, etc)14%
  • Viruses and Security Breach (unprotected systems are always at risk) 7%
  • Natural Disasters 3%

Establishing a disaster recovery plan can be done in the following four steps:

1) Take a potential risk inventory.
Make a list of every potential cause of data loss and the solutions to each. Your list should include losses that won't affect the business very much, and those that would shut the business down temporarily or permanently. Information Technology experts can assist you with creating the potential risk inventory - as they will have the knowledge and experience to identify possibilities that you are not likely to think of but need to plan for all the same. These IT experts will also be able discuss preventative solutions to guard against each type of potential data loss.
2) Rate each of your potential data loss situations.
How likely is it for each of the items on your risk inventory to occur? Well, rating them in order of importance and likeliness to occur will help you determine where to focus your disaster recovery plan efforts.
3) Develop your disaster recovery plan.
First, go through each of your potential risks and their solutions. Then, determine how long it would take you to recover. Could your business be offline for 24 hours? A week? Well, depending on the nature of your business, being offline for even just 24 hours could result in your losing customers to your competition. So look at ways to reduce the length of time it would take you to recover from each type of data loss risk.
4) Put your disaster recovery plan to the test.
Once you've created your plan of action for recovering lost data, you should test your solutions. A disaster recovery plan is just a plan until it can be tested and proven. Click here to learn how [contentblock id=company] can create a business disaster recovery plan for you with our Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Services for your business in [contentblock id=location].
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Disaster Recovery Planning

You Need A Disaster Recovery Plan

Consider last year's Hurricane Sandy. What about recent tornados? And other natural disasters? Well, they have truly put things in to perspective. So businesses need to prepare. And the safety of your employees is your top concern. Next, follow the disaster recovery plan! Protect your data and applications that run it. Call us about your disaster recovery plan audit. Disaster Recovery Planning   Tech is used to process data. Employees use e-mail and VOIP systems. Electronic data interchange (EDI) transmits data. And this includes orders and payments from one company to another. Servers store your info. They also store large amounts of data. Computers and other devices manage  info for your business. So what do you when your tech stops working?  http://www.ready.gov/business/implementation/IT
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How to Recover Your Lost Computer Files – Inexpensively and Easily

7K0A0129 We maintain our computers similarly to how we maintain our own health - rarely do we take the time to learn about preventing health complications, and instead work to repair our health once we've become ill! We take care of our computers the same way, in that we rarely think about the safety or well-being of our data until something happens that leads to data loss or corruption. And when that does happen, how do you recover your lost computer files? Have you ever taken a moment to imagine what would happen if you lost some or all of your computer files? Whether you only use your computer for personal reasons; or for school or work, file or data loss can be devastating! Think of all of those family photographs, music files or class assignments! Think of the report you spent weeks working on. Some files can be replaced with time and effort, while others (particularly your photos or home videos) cannot. Numerous reports tell us that over a third of computer users don't back up their files; and of those that actually do perform some data backup - 76% of people don't do it often enough. Most people tend to think computer files are lost only due to catastrophic events - like tornadoes and hurricanes. Don't forget about slightly more common events, including fire, flood or computer viruses. A computer "disaster" does not necessarily have to be one from Mother Nature, either. Suppose you dropped your laptop down the stairs or spilled your coffee on the keyboard? Losing personal files is devastating because of their sentimental value - while business owners who rely on content and files can consider the loss of data fatal to their business if they don't have a data backup plan in place.

Create a Plan to Recover Your Lost Computer Files Before Disaster Strikes

Just like many human health issues can be prevented with proper diet and care, having a complete backup plan in place can prevent disaster from occurring to your precious data. Data backup isn't as complicated or expensive as you might believe. It is far easier to back up your files to be able to restore them after something damages your computer, than it is to recover them after disaster strikes. Consider a data backup plan to be your computer's insurance policy! Picking Up The Pieces If you've already experienced the loss of data and you hadn't backed up your data and files, you'll need to use data recovery services to recover as much of the lost information as possible. Data recovery makes it possible to save some of the data from damaged, corrupted or failed storage devices, but it's expensive, and you may never recover 100% of the data you've lost. Data Backup and Recovery Solution Your best solution is to use a remote data backup system. This will backup and store your data files and information at regularly scheduled intervals to an online data store accessed via the web. Your backed-up information can then be restored to any computer if your computer's hard disk fails, or if it has been attacked by a virus, or physically damaged. Some people back up their files to CDs or flash drives - and then keep these storage devices in the same location as the computer. If there is a natural disaster, chances are the computer and the backup copies will be ruined. Remote data backup services exist for both personal computer users and businesses of all sizes. Prices range from very reasonable to very expensive - based on how much storage you require and other factors. Prevention is the best medicine - give yourself peace of mind with a data backup insurance policy for your computer files. Click here to learn how [contentblock id=company] can help you prevent data loss and quickly recover your lost computer files with our Remote Data Storage Services for your business in [contentblock id=location].
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