Disaster Recovery Plans

Entering another year of Hurricane Preparedness causes us to pause and review the importance of a systematic plan to protect your business data, files, contacts, proposals and anything else you store on your computer or server.  What happens when you have protected your information and you must access the back-up system?

Backing up your data is only one crucial part of a disaster recovery plan. The other components that are crucial are written procedures on how to respond if and when a server/network fails leaving your computer network temporarily crippled.   We have all become dependent upon computers to make our daily tasks easier and more efficient.  Having a plan in place to keep those computers running 99% of the time is a critical but often overlooked task.

There are four questions you to ask yourself before you are faced with the situation of hardware loss or potential data loss. 

What information do I need to operate my business if I don’t have a computer?

How do I get this information if my server/network or workstation is down?              

Can I do business without a computer?

How can our staff be educated to operate should this occur?

Answering these questions should get you started in the right direction to creating a disaster recovery plan.  What information do I need to operate my business if I don’t have a computer should be your top priority.  

To address, how I get information if my workstation is down will depend on what type of medium you backup to and how difficult it is to get to the information on that media if your system fails.

 If you cannot do business when your server/network or workstation is down having redundant servers or at least a some type of secondary station that will allow you to keep your data online if your primary station goes down.

Once the plan is written it should have all the information, contacts and critical data that you need to get your operation back on track with the minimum amount of disruption to your work flow.  Not only it is important to have this information but to test your plan to make sure that it will actually work when the time comes.   Many times I come across new clients who think that they are backing up all their files and applications just to find out that their backup has not been running for three or four months.  To protect yourself at least once a month task someone in your organization or your IT consultant to restore files and verify your data is backed up.

Finally, communicate with your staff what they can do to protect their work and data and protocols to protect your business data.

A well designed disaster recovery plan should allow your business to experience the least amount of computer downtime as possible while allowing your business to continue to function while the computer network is being repaired.  We have all been in situation one time or another where we have worked for hours, days or in the case of your business years only to have hardware failure and all your time, effort is wiped out.  Putting critical plans in place to back up and protect your data is undoubtedly as critical as protecting your physical property.