Author: Stephanie Baird, LOGIX Data Products Inc.
When a data disaster strikes, your employees will not have access to the data and applications they need to perform their job. Having your employees waiting around while your system is down is bad enough as it is, and even worse if you are not sure when your system will be up and running again.
As a business owner or manager, you are under a high level of pressure to deliver on budgets, meet deadlines and client promises. Your success depends on your team’s ability to be productive during the hours they spend at the office. Nobody wants to have to worry about the worst-case scenario, but with a survival rate of less than 10%, companies without an effective disaster recovery plan are forced out of business within 2 years of experiencing major data loss. Being prepared is key for surviving a data disaster.
Consider the implications of total disruption. How much of your time and expenses would go into restoring business information? How much revenue would be lost if your employees had limited or no access to critical files and programs? These threats are real and constantly evolving.
HOW TO PREPARE FOR A DATA DISASTER
- Talk to your IT provider.
Don’t wait for a disaster before you act. Start the conversation now! If you have not prepared and fall victim to a data disaster, it is usually too late to do anything to restore your data. Transition your business from reactive to proactive. Ask your IT provider for a network assessment and a solution to help protect your business from data loss.
- Be part of the conversation
You know best which files you and your team needs to succeed. Ask questions, engage in the conversation and request best practices training for you and your staff. That way, you will be ready to respond if your company falls victim to data loss.
- Know that your plan will work.
You should feel confident that your data is available when you need it. Ask your IT provider, “If our company files are lost, what do we do?” Having your IT provider run a disaster simulation can ensure that your plan will deliver on your recovery point (RPO) and recovery time objectives (RTO). If it cannot, then the availability gap needs to be addressed.
- Save your work.
It sounds obvious, but saving your files frequently can be overlooked. There is always a risk of losing work in the event of a disaster, but if you save often, the risk is decreased. Protect your business data with a managed backup solution and a disaster recovery plan. Be confident that your mission-critical data can be restored in the event of system failure, data corruption, inaccessible or lost files, lost or stolen devices, system failure, as well as fire, flood, electric, natural disasters and more.
This article was originally published in CONNECT Magazine Summer 2019.
