Posts Tagged "Disaster Recovery Plan"

The school of hard knocks isn’t the way to learn how to set up a disaster recovery plan. In fact, it shouldn’t be a learning process at all because if it fails, there may not be a second time around to learn from your mistakes. It’s imperative to get it right the first time. How is this possible? Get input from experts about your disaster recovery plan. Failing to do this could result in a flawed plan that may let you down in a time of need. Here are three mistakes commonly found in flawed plans:

A Recovery Point Objective That’s Too Large

When a disaster causes data loss, you will rely on data backups saved at previous points in time. The further in the past the backup was made, the more data you’ve lost. Too many people underestimate the business damage caused by using data that’s a day old. The damage is especially acute during peak times of the year when a 24 hour period accounts for a lot of business. If disaster strikes at such a time when your business must operate at peak efficiency, how much data can you afford to lose?

Failing to Plan for a Broad Range of Disasters

It’s always the problem that you fail to plan for that does you in. If you’re in a hurricane zone, you’ve likely planned for the problems this type of weather event can cause. On the other hand, cyber attacks, hardware failures, software failures, and network outages can be costly as well. Human error is often overlooked, yet is a common reason for data loss. A rushed employee or a new hire could accidentally delete critical files or physically damage a server or storage device.

Failing to Keep the Disaster Recovery Plan Current

Disaster recovery is often regarded as a one-time chore to quickly get out of the way because more pressing business concerns demand one’s attention. When treated that way, recovery plans are usually shelved and forgotten. When your business changes, evolves, or scales, updates to your recovery plan must reflect this. An important application upgrade that’s not incorporated into the plan, or employee turnover that causes your organization to lose people tasked with implementing the disaster plan can weaken or nullify its effectiveness.

Contact us today to learn how your business can benefit from WHOA.com’s fully managed disaster recovery as a service.

Many small businesses don’t have adequate disaster recovery plans. A common reason is that disaster recovery plan process is a low priority item for them. They see it as an expense for a hypothetical event that may never happen.

Because of this, day-to-day operations continually displace putting together and implementing a solution. It doesn’t help that a complete and robust plan involving redundant systems can be complex and costly. However, should disaster ever strike, it will be too late. Unfortunately, inadequate disaster recovery planning has forced many companies out of business.

There are many ways that disaster can strike, and businesses can potentially fall victim to any one of the five listed below:

Flooding

Not being next to a river, lake, ocean, or other body of water doesn’t guaranty safety from floods. Heavy rainfall or snow melt from an unusually snowy winter can cause a normally dry creek bed to overflow and flood your building.

Floods often happen independently of weather such as a nearby water main that bursts or even a small fire that triggers your sprinkler system. Water can damage your servers and destroy vital business and customer data.

Hurricanes

You don’t have to live near the Gulf of Mexico to experience hurricanes. All towns and cities along the eastern seaboard are potential sites for hurricane damage. Hurricanes cause flooding, wind damage, and large-scale power loss.

Tornados

These occur throughout the Midwest. However, tornados have struck in areas not commonly associated with them. If your area gets plenty of thunderstorm activity, there’s always a possibility of a severe storm developing into a tornado.

Fires

Out-of-control wildfires during periods of protracted dry weather have surrounded and burned down multiple buildings at a time. However, a fire can occur anywhere at any time. If your building has combustible materials, you’re at risk.

Power Failure

The power grid has many vulnerabilities. Week long power outages have occurred in several areas of the United States because of severe ice storms or unusually early snowfall occurring before trees have shed their leaves. Windstorms can also knock down trees onto power lines. Faulty power infrastructure and generator failures are yet other causes.

It’s not a question of if a disaster will strike but when. Several of the above listed disasters can happen to almost any business. If one should shut your business down for too long or destroy critical data, the losses in revenue, customers, and credibility could be irrecoverable and end your business. Whoa offers a fully managed disaster recovery as a service. To learn more about this or about disaster recovery in general, contact us.

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