Disaster recovery is how a business restores IT systems and data after an unexpected event, like a cyberattack or a natural disaster. It’s an important factor for any business that relies on technology.
But disaster recovery is not a one-time thing. It must be checked and tested often to make sure that it fits your current and future business needs. As your business changes and grows, so should your disaster recovery plans.
As Suffolk’s leading IT support team, we’ve seen first-hand how essential it is for local businesses in the East of England to keep their disaster recovery plans up to date.
What is IT disaster recovery, and why is it important for your business?
IT disaster recovery: how to retrieve your IT systems and data after an unexpected event. It is not the same as backup, which is copying your data to another place. Backup is part of the answer, but you need a disaster recovery plan.
Your IT disaster recovery plan should include:
- how to recover your IT systems and data
- what resources and tools you’ll use
- who will be responsible for what
- how long it will take to get back to normal
- testing and updating procedures
A disaster can have a terrible impact on your business. You may lose data, customers, money, and your reputation. You may also face penalties for failing to protect your data or meet industry standards.
That’s why a disaster recovery plan is a must for your business. It can help you to minimise the downtime, data loss, and costs of a disaster. It can also help you restore your IT systems and data as fast and effectively as possible.
If you need help to set up your disaster recovery plans or test that your drills are still sufficient, please get in touch.
Common disasters that your business could face
Here are some common types of disasters that can affect IT systems. It’s important that your disaster recovery plan focuses heavily on risk management, and provides suitable responses for the following:
Cyberattacks
These are attacks by hackers who want to access, damage, or destroy your IT systems or data. They may use ransomware, malware, or phishing. Cyberattacks are very common and expensive for businesses.
Natural disaster
These are events caused by nature that can disrupt your IT systems or data. They may include floods, fires, earthquakes, storms, or power outages. Natural disasters are hard to predict and can damage your physical infrastructure and equipment.
Human error
These are mistakes or accidents caused by your employees that can affect your IT systems or data. They include deleting or overwriting files, spilling liquids on devices, or losing devices. Human mistakes are unavoidable but can have serious effects on your business.
How to create an IT disaster recovery policy
An IT disaster recovery policy records how you will restore your IT systems and data after a disaster.
We work closely with businesses across Suffolk, Norfolk and Essex, helping them to create effective disaster recovery policies that give them lasting protection. We don’t want any business to be adversely affected by something that is outside of their control. But with a disaster recovery plan, you can make an unfortunate situation manageable.
Here are our top tips to create an IT disaster recovery policy.
Find out what IT systems and data are critical
Decide which IT assets are vital for your business and rank them by their importance and impact. You should also know the links, needs, and recovery goals for each asset. These goals should include how fast you want to restore them and how much data you can afford to lose.
Develop a risk management plan
Consider what could go wrong with your IT systems and data. How likely are these factors to happen and how bad would that be for your business?
Create a backup strategy
Your backup strategy should include:
- backup methods: how you will copy and save your data
- backup locations: where you will store your backups
- backup frequency: how often you will update your backups
- backup recovery: how you will restore your data if needed
You should also use more than one backup method and location, such as cloud services or external hard drives.
With our cloud-to-cloud services, we can set up quick and easy fixed-price backups in just a few minutes.
Set up disaster recovery procedures
You need procedures for how to recover after a disaster. Your disaster recovery procedures should include:
- disaster recovery team: who will do what, how they will communicate, and who they will report to
- recovery steps and tools: what you will do and use to restore your IT systems and data
- disaster declaration and activation: when and how you will decide that a disaster has occurred and start the recovery process
Test it all
Carry out regular tests, such as drills and audits, to check how well your disaster recovery works. Record the results, identify any gaps or issues, and make improvements.
Review and update
Review your disaster recovery policy at least once a year or whenever there are changes in your business or IT infrastructure. You should also update your policy to reflect the latest best practices, technologies, and regulations.
What is disaster recovery in cloud computing?
Disaster recovery in cloud computing is a service that allows you to store and recover your data and IT infrastructure through online storage in case of a disaster. It has several benefits over traditional disaster recovery methods:
- It costs less: There’s no need to buy and maintain a second physical site for backup and recovery. You only pay for what you use in the cloud and can change it when you want.
- It’s flexible: Choose from a range of cloud disaster recovery services, depending on your budget and business needs.
- It’s reliable: Take advantage of the high availability, security, and performance of cloud providers to make sure that your data and systems are always accessible and protected.
But disaster recovery in cloud computing also has its downsides:
- Shared responsibility: The cloud provider is responsible for maintaining their technology and providing security for their platforms. You are responsible for backing up your data and organising your disaster recovery plan.
- Speed and delay: Your network must be fast enough and have low delays to move your data to the cloud and back, especially if you have a lot of data or need quick recovery.
- Testing and checking: It’s up to you to test and check your disaster recovery plan in the cloud to ensure it works as expected and meets your needs.
Disaster recovery in cloud computing helps you protect your data and systems in case of a disaster, but it also requires careful planning and testing on your part.
Disaster recovery: How can Lucid Systems help?
We are Lucid Systems, a Microsoft Gold Partner and ISO 27001 accredited IT service. This means that we follow the highest standards of quality and security. We help our clients throughout the East of England to create strong disaster recovery plans. We can use our in-depth knowledge and understanding of your business to make sure that you remain resilient if a disaster happens.
With our backup services, you can save your data fast for a low fixed price and choose from a range of cloud platforms based on your business needs.
If you want to learn more about how we can help you with disaster recovery, contact us today.
