Companies can’t afford downtime or interruption of services in today’s world of global connectivity. Data loss can cripple your business, which means you better have a plan in place before disaster strikes. In order to remain operational during a disaster means you need to plan and prepare well ahead of time – not in the midst of the next hurricane, tornado, flood, or earthquake. Are you ready?
If you’re just starting your search for a disaster recovery provider, the task at hand may feel overwhelming due to the number of options out there. So, where do you start your search? Keep the following aspects of disaster recovery solutions in mind while navigating your search to ensure your company’s data will remain up and running, even when operations out side of the data center are down.
- Recovery Time Objective (RTO): Determine the length of time an outage can last before your company will start to experience negative effects. Only select services that meet the minimum RTO.
- Recovery Point Objective (RPO): Determine the maximum length of time that your data can go between backups. RPOs vary widely per company and can range anywhere from one minute to one hour, or even one day for smaller businesses. No matter the interval, select services that are able to support your RPO.
- Cloud-based Disaster Recovery: Opting tovirtualize existing data and configurations often proves to be a more cost-effective than traditional services. However be warned that lack of a physical facility can mean scrambling to recreate the production environment, adding undue stress to an already challenging situation.
- High Speed Access: Data replication is best enabled by high-speed fiber, making a high-performance network and storage fabric crucial.
- Risk of Natural Disaster: We’ve all heard the phrase:location, location, location! Data centers are not an exception to this age-old saying. Data centers located in regions that are not prone to natural disasters have a decided advantage.
- Compliance Audits: Many disaster recovery providers will say that they can provide you with the protection that you require, but can they prove it? Don’t move forward with any decisions before seeing copies of compliance audits, such as SSAE16, HIPAA, SOC and PCI.
- Regular Testing: Having a disaster recovery plan in place is a start, however you must test your plan to ensure your solution is working as planned. Aim to testing twice a year, with yearly tests considered the minimum.
Planning ahead has proven to be a make or break decision for many companies. Don’t be forced to close your doors after a disaster. Whether you’re reinforcing an existing disaster recovery plan or creating one from scratch, the time to plan is now.
