BC/DR stands for Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery. Planning for disaster is one of the first steps small businesses should take when setting up a network. Backup servers off-site will help you retain work you’ve done and avoid terrible losses in doomsday scenarios like your entire office burning to the ground. But what about the smaller everyday disasters? Small disasters like power outages, failed equipment, or corrupted data are a lot more likely to occur and shouldn’t be overlooked. It’s these day-in and day-out upsets that are more likely to hinder your business’ progress.
Traditionally the costs for preparing for computing disasters has been costly. IT staff on hand, server rooms off site, and secure networks were all expensive. These days the costs have been reduced for these technologies and infrastructure so it’s more feasible for businesses to ensure continuity. Now the importance has shifted to executing a good plan. Many companies don’t know where to begin. Whether you’re thinking about a BC/DR plan, or already have one on paper, consider these suggestions.
1) Thwarting Disaster
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all predict disasters and avoid them altogether? A lot of times there are very preventable disasters you can avoid with some common sense. All too often, when visiting businesses, we see old desktop computers on the floor as the company’s servers. Sure it’s cheap and easy but this is truly a disaster waiting to happen. Ensure your infrastructure is housed in a clean, safe environment with limited access to ensure maximum uptime. Also get devices like Uninterruptable Power Supplies (UPS) and redundant hard drives in a RAID (redundant array of independent disks.) Make the investment here to protect your organization’s data and computers and establish a stable foundation for your BC/DR.
2) Be Realistic
While it’s fine to plan for major catastrophic disasters like your building blowing up or an asteroid colliding with your server warehouse, it’s easy to get wrapped up in unlikely scenarios. It’s more likely power outages, failed equipment, or lost or corrupted data will effect your business’ productivity. Start with one focused scenario and walk through it entirely. If you study these small disasters and review them, you can better communicate a plan to the people in your oganization. Stage a test of your plan to make sure it’s effective and everyone is comfortable with the process. Having IT staff on call or in your office should be part of your response plan.
3) Human Error
We’ve seen lots of clients take tape backups home every night. Let’s say a database was corrupted, and you need a tape from last week to restore it, but Bob (the manager who takes the tapes home) is away on vacation. The tape is sitting at his house so you can’t restore the database. Try to take the human variable out of the equation by utilizing electronic data backup and recovery systems, which let you securely back up data to an off site location. Authorize multiple people in the organization to access the service to make sure restores can be performed if somebody is on vacation or unable. Most of the time those manual tape backups aren’t done regularly anyways, so an electronic solution makes backups more reliable.
4) Cloud Computing
Outside cloud providers have the tools and platforms to offer cost-effective BC/DR solutions for smaller businesses. Some of them also offer advanced features like queuing all your emails. In the event of a failed email server, employees can access a webpage to access emails and respond to clients until the server is restored. Whether you have internal IT staff or outsource, it’s important to plan for disasters in the way that makes most sense for your company’s unique requirements.
