Member Article

Five tips for disaster recovery

As a business, there is no scarier situation than turning on your computer to discover valuable and important data, files and information have been lost. This could be due to a failure in equipment; failure of software resulting in corruption of data, malicious actions such as cyberattacks or a combination of all of these.

The impact of data loss can result in lost working time and, in worst-case scenarios, result in losing business. Here are five ways in which you can minimise the impact of the unexpected on your business:

1) Quantify the risks and have a plan, even if the plan is to accept the risk.

Have a disaster recovery plan in place: Should the worst happen, a formal disaster recovery plan will help to protect your business and allow it to continue trading normally. Your disaster recovery plan should clearly communicate to all members of staff the procedures to take should there be a risk of data or information being lost. Some companies use disaster recovery plans to cover a wide range of scenarios ranging from fire and flooding to acts of terrorism, but when it comes to protecting your data, your plan should consider the risks and implications on your business:

Threats – What are the possible threats to your business? Can members of staff access data away from the office? How secure are systems. We’ve all heard horror stories of laptops being left on trains and whole companies being brought to their knees by hackers. One advantage of using a cloud-based system, for example, can be that no data is held on personal device – this can mean should a computer become lost or stolen, company data remains secure.

Risks – What systems are at risk? Where is data held? Email is the lifeblood of many businesses, but it’s also worth giving consideration to other data held within the business, for example client data and personnel information.

Prevention – What action can be undertaken to minimise the threat to your business? For example backing up data and machines, ensuring all machines have the latest anti-virus software installed and, if using a firewall, it only allows the required traffic through.

Response – How and when do you respond if you discover a problem with a server or its data? Do you have back-up systems and procedures in place? Do you have the skills in house, or Service Level Agreements with suppliers?

Recovery – Give consideration to the amount time that a data failure would prevent your business from trading. Two main considerations are the amount of lost data (in time) the business could manage to lose and the amount of time it would take to restore that data to a working environment. These are known as Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) respectively. RPO for a bank would be zero as they can’t afford to lose a single transaction, however in regard to RTO, they may be able to do without access to that data for a number of days.

2) Regularly back up data, files and information Regularly backing up files and documents can significantly reduce the impact of a server failure on your business. Storing your data back-ups away from your usual business premises means that even if your premises are affected, your business can continue to trade. Some businesses use almost instant back-up technology, significantly minimising the disruption to the company.

3) Regularly restore your data in a test environment Test the restore process; can you get your data back and how long does it take? Do your staff have the skills and experience to restore your data?

4) Switch to a Cloud-based or Hybrid infrastructure Cloud servers are typically more reliable and usually data centre providers maintain equipment on your behalf – this usually includes software updates, system upgrades and security. It’s worth remembering that cloud servers share data securely across a number of different machines, often in different locations, meaning that should one machine fail, you can continue to trade normally.

5) Minimise the risks Perform regular health checks, update operating systems and antivirus software. If you maintain your own IT equipment, conduct regular health checks to ensure your IT systems are running smoothly. Update software with patches regularly and ensure you are running the latest anti-virus and firewall software. Make sure that your data-back-ups are working properly and test them regularly, ensuring that the data can be restored. If your computer operating system isn’t up to date, this can increase the risk of spyware and cyber-attacks. Upgrading to a cloud server is more secure, as they automatically upgrade to the latest system.

Rory Delahoyde is the Managing Director at H.A Hosting, home of the Sheffield Data Centre

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by HA Hosting .