Let’s take a walk down memory lane. Remember Hurricane Sandy in 2012 when it shut down data centers in New York including servers hosting BuzzFeed, Gawker, Huffington Post, and other sites. A general loss of power in companies all over the area caused outages and loss of connectivity and ultimately loss of data. Fast forward five years and we have recently had three very powerful hurricanes – Harvey, Irma, and Marie – that impacted the states of Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and the territory of Puerto Rico. Businesses all over those regions dealt with loss of power, flooding and destruction due to high winds. Is your company ready for an act of nature, whether it is a category five hurricane, a tornado, snow storm, flash flood, earthquake, or any number of other things that Mother Nature can throw at us?
Here are some things to consider when designing your disaster recovery plan.
- Create a Disaster Recovery Plan or Plans – Don’t have a disaster recovery plan? Ummm well you should. While action may differ depending upon the event, all businesses should plan ahead for a disaster. The plan should include not only what steps to take to protect, recover, and rebound from a disaster, but also how the data will be handled. The plan should prioritize critical processes depending upon emergency scenarios and each team member’s response role.
- Complete a Data Review – Map out exactly where all of your data is and where you would need to access to regain control of backed up data. Your business team should do a periodic review of where all the digital assets are so that the information can be easily dealt with in the case of an emergency.
- Risk Assessments – Have a professional risk assessment done on your company including your hardware, software, and all the data you have stored. Identify your system vulnerabilities and patch them up as best you can. Once inspected, if anything is not up to par you should seek outside expertise for recommendations to secure your data.
- Assess Back Ups – If you do not have multiple layers of back ups depending upon the data, you will be in a tough spot once a disaster strikes. Be sure to have a backup plan and a solution for each area that you deem a priority. Customers expect that even after a large event that their data is accessible again fairly quickly.
Do you have questions about Disaster Recovery or Backup Plans? Call M&H Consulting at 1-(866)-964-8324 or visit our website at http://www.mhconsults.com
Categorised in: disaster recovery, IT Consulting Services