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natural disaster

Planning for Data Recovery Before a Natural Disaster

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When a natural disaster hits, your data can be affected. Everything, including your IT infrastructure, can be destroyed. Getting back up and running is critical for the health of your business. How quickly you can resume operations depends largely on what you do to protect your data before a disaster occurs. Having a data recovery plan is critical.

Protecting Data with a Disaster Recovery Plan

What is a data recovery plan?

A data recovery plan is a process or set of procedures, usually in written form, that outline how your data will be recovered in case of a disaster. It is typically developed in conjunction with the business continuity plan and traditionally refers to data recovery as a backup that restores data to a device or external server.

What files get backed up?

One of the first steps in a data recovery plan is determining what data is most important to back up. While the cloud is amazing for working remotely, it is also helpful in providing secure, online storage that is not affected by a natural disaster. Businesses resume operations anywhere, at any time, with continuous access to their daily files. But there are certain files that are not usually stored in a cloud. Files that are not as frequently accessed, such as those for insurance and regulatory purposes, might be stored in a server on the premises and require a backup.

If you have multiple locations and it is your headquarters that is destroyed, you might have large data, such as employee and accounting files, that are most vulnerable during a disaster and require a backup.

Where are backup files located?

Once you determine what files need a backup, your next step is determining where to keep them. Ideally, a company might want a second server to backup their operating server. Having a second server nearby could be convenient if you have multiple local facilities, but it could put data at risk depending on the geographic extent of the disaster. Therefore, a backup server should be located a good distance away to account for extensive storm systems.

While having a second server might seem logical for some businesses, it is not always cost effective. Many small to medium businesses have found the cost of maintaining a backup server costly because of such factors as managing big data, ever-changing technology, and added infrastructure. For this reason, they look at third-party hosting of a physical or virtual server, known as Disaster-Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS).

Boost IT assists with planning for disaster recovery, and providing cloud and DRaaS. Understanding the differences in these services can have a huge effect on your business revenue in case of a natural disaster. For more information, read our blog post about The Differences between Backup, Disaster Recovery, & Business Continuity or contact us at 404-865-1289.

What Will Happen to Your Data if Disaster Strikes

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Your data is your company’s most valuable asset. It could be at risk if a disaster strikes. The potential event will cause a disruption. How big of a disruption can depend on how big of a disaster and how well you’ve prepared.

According to the National Archives and Records Administration, approximately 60 percent of companies that lose data after a disaster shut down within six months. An estimated 93 percent of companies that lost their data center for 10 days or more filed bankruptcy within one year of the setback. To minimize your risk, protecting your data from all types of disasters is critical.

Types of Disasters

Natural Disaster

Floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, and blizzards can damage and destroy both personal and intellectual property within seconds. If your business location experiences a natural disaster, you want your data protected and safely stored until your business can operate.

A natural disaster could cause a long, physical recovery time. It could take months for your business to come back. Having a data recovery plan can help the business provide necessary information for insurance and regulatory purposes while allowing you to operate in a temporary location.

Criminal Disaster

Cyberattacks are becoming more common for small to medium businesses. Someone physically or virtually attacks your systems to obtain sensitive data or corrupt files. Your entire database could be wiped clean – gone. It’s important to have data backed up in a separate location, secure from cybercriminals. But having a backup is only part of the problem.

If your data gets lost from a cyberattack, you could be looking at sensitive data being stolen and legal woes. All those years of building trust with your clients could be forgotten. Plus, the repercussions of a criminal attack could go on for years. You need different planning to protect your data from a criminal disaster compared to other disasters.

System Failure

When a component in your hardware fails, you could have a part that needs to be repaired or replaced. This is a common disaster type that usually leads to downtime for one or more employees. Besides the downtime for determining the problem and fixing it, there is the downtime for redoing any work that was lost after a system failure. If a server that connects to multiple workstations fails, your problems with downtime can multiply fast.

Mistakes/Accidents

Human error causes more disasters than most companies want to admit. A mistake might consist of deleting a file, or using someone else’s work as a template and then saving over it. It can be a nightmare trying to recreate what is lost. When your data is backed up, your IT professional can obtain the original file from the backup source.

A big problem with data recovery is that no one is fully prepared for a disaster. The potential event will cause a disruption. Small scale data loss such as a power outage will have downtime that is a nuisance but can realistically be recreated. A large amount of data that is lost with a major disaster can be devastating.

Having a solid disaster recovery plan in place before a disaster strikes and automatically testing it daily is the best protection for your data. Boost IT can help you protect your data from all types of disasters. We will assist with assessing your systems and regulatory requirements, putting together a disaster recovery plan, and running the appropriate tests. To find out more, contact us at 404-865-1289.

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