Data Insurance in the organization
Disaster Recovery
The Disaster Recovery Plan
Setting up plan to restore data, and the plans’ importance
The Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) is a group of “actions that need to be taken before and after a disaster,” that are performed in order to help protect businesses in such an event. Sinopia knows how to lead its clients, in a case of a logical or physical failure, in emergencies, or in cases of failures because of natural disaster, to a state in which they continue their business activities with minimal impact of the threat, thanks to the knowledge, experience and methodology built up over the years.
Is it worthwhile to invest in a disaster recovery plan?
Cost/benefit
Although it isn’t always possible to avoid disasters, there is a plan that can contribute to reducing the potential damage, and to returning to normal activity quickly.
Disaster recovery plans, and the preventive measures they include, are essential in stopping disasters in the first place. Organizations can’t always avoid disasters, but setting up a program helps to minimize the possible damage, and to quickly reactivate critical systems.
More than 50% of businesses cannot cope with a shutdown without significant financial damage – including the potential of total business failure.
What does a disaster recovery plan include?
A disaster recovery plan includes a number of components. The most important elements include:
- Prevention measures that lessen the risk of human error.
- Detection measures whose goal is to quickly identify undesirable events.
- Corrective measures that restore lost data, and enable restarting business processes after a disaster.
In order to achieve these objectives, the company employee responsible for this subject must perform the following actions:
- Perform an analysis of potential threats
- Maintain the IT system in an optimal state
- Search for innovative solutions that will guarantee business continuity, focusing on cyber security.
Timely updates, and choosing more innovative hardware and software, can save organizations a lot of money in the long run. Moreover, an even bigger change can be seen, as more and more organizations adopt cloud-based data management instead of on-premises storage and operation. This axis, as part of disaster recovery planning, can minimize the cost of maintaining an archive and creating comprehensive backups.
A rise in worker productivity
A disaster recovery plan must be implemented by just the right people, whose efficiency and productivity will increase when specific roles and responsibilities are assigned to them.
In certain cases, a disaster recovery plan can be implemented by at least two people, each of whom is able to handle this task. This redundancy can be incredibly beneficial in the long run. When multiple employees are able to handle a given task, organizations can enjoy peace of mind in regards to the integrity of the network. In addition, if someone is on vacation or on sick leave, there will still be a qualified person in the organization who is able to cope with the task that suits them.
Also, the same organization-wide training rule applies when an employee leaves the company. These are just a few scenarios that can be forecast and addressed as part of a disaster planning strategy.
Better customer retention
Customers today expect solutions that are no less than perfect and completely reliable. They are unforgiving in case of failures or downtime. When a certain business cannot meet their expectations, customers will simply switch to another service provider.
Disaster recovery planning allows businesses to maintain high-quality service, regardless of circumstances. In some industries, customers will be heavily affected by the shutdown. This is especially true for B2B service providers. A chain reaction can potentially lead to the failure of multiple businesses and a degraded reputation.
Reducing the risk of a shutdown and data loss means that end customers can rest assured that they will receive adequate service even after a disaster that causes a shutdown strikes. As a result, investing in disaster recovery planning is a necessity when it comes to sustainable customer retention.
A better understanding of scalability
One of the main things that must be done when planning disaster recovery is to find innovative solutions. Technologies such as cloud-based data storage and backups simplify the process of maintaining data archives, improve the effectiveness of backups, and reduce the cost of disaster recovery.
Disaster recovery planning begins with in-depth research and comparing alternatives. Businesses engaged in such a strategic process can quickly uncover a solution for storing data that makes much more sense than the one currently used, and that can be tweaked on the go.
Disaster recovery planning can streamline IT processes, can help eliminate unnecessary hardware, and can reduce the risk of human error. In a sense, you are not just preparing to recover following a disaster, you are working to make your business more flexible and profitable.
The plan's benefits
As with other insurance plans, a disaster recovery plan has benefits, such as:
- Reducing “back to health” time and possible critical delays in the business’s activity
- Preventing possible legal responsibility
- Improved security
- Avoiding possible economic damage caused by last minute decision-making in the course of the disaster.
The types of disaster recovery
There are different types of disaster recovery plans, but there are three main strategies that are often used: detection measures, repair measures, and most important of all, prevention measures.
Prevention measures are one of the most important parts of the disaster recovery plan, because they are used to identify, to relate to, and to reduce environmental and other risks, in order to prevent a disaster from occurring in the first place. There are several prevention strategies for data prevention programs, including:
Backing up the business’s data
Magnetic backup tapes are one of the easiest ways to back up data, because of their high-volume capacity and their low cost. By backing up to off-site servers, data can be retrieved and recovered quickly in the event of a site disaster. Of course, beyond backup tapes, there are also various digital backup solutions.
Fire extinguishment systems and controlled storage
To prevent environmental damage, two key protections to be implemented are fire suppression systems and climate controls to regulate temperature and humidity in storage areas
Managing digital documents and data securely
With Document Management System (DMS) software, you can configure many security measures that include individual user access controls, encryption and firewall systems, and central backup servers without an internet connection, in case of a data breach.
In summary
When it comes to the computer systems in the organization, it is not always possible to avoid the breakdown of systems and the loss of valuable material. This is why every organization should make sure it has a disaster recovery plan, along with essential measures to minimize potential damages, restore routine operations quickly, and, most importantly, prevent the disaster in the first place.
