Data Loss Can Cripple A Business – Would It Cripple Yours?
Picture the sheer horror of the following scenario to a business owner: You arrive at work to be told that your IT system has gone down and that all the data may be lost? You ask your in company IT specialist how long it will take to restore the back up and you are told the backup has also failed and all of a sudden the sheer horror of the situation sinks home as you realise have lost your entire businesses data .
Your IT infrastructure forms the very core of most businesses I this day and age and this does not only apply to multi-national corporations but even the local home office user as well. And if you have not taken sufficient steps to cope with potential data losses then the reality is you could be putting the existence of your business at peril.
Any IT solution should not be restricted to the basics like computer support , but should also take into account business continuity planning.
Danger lurks around many corners ranging from mechanical and electronic failures, human error, to the more sinister employee sabotage and data theft. Even more unpredictable disasters can occur. Many businesses are still reeling from the devastating floods of 2007 – the type of Act of God that can hit any unprotected business.
There is a lot more interest being taken in the topic of business continuity recently, but the implementation of disaster recovery solutions has been pretty hit and miss for many companies and businesses, many of which still rely on aging tape back up technology. One of the biggest failings is testing the system that has been put in place and many companies have felt the pain of the backup simply not being available in their hour of need.
This then leads to the need for far more expensive data recovery or raid data recovery as a method of hopefully retrieving vital data.
Many companies are now investing in remote data backup models as part of their business continuity strategy as these have a number of significant advantages.
For example, remote backup does not rely on restoration from tape devices, but instead lost data can be accessed almost immediately directly from a secure location regardless of the time of day or even where you are trying to access the data from. So there is no worry that the backup did not work or the tape was possibly faulty, or even that the backup device has failed and you can’t get a model that can read your tapes.
An effective business continuity plan as long as it has been implemented can be the difference between the survival or failure of a business going forward, so to fully understand the implications of a data loss emergency ask yourself some very serious questions: could your business carry on if you lost all of your customer records or what would be the impact on our business if we lost all our computer aided design data.
And of course on a final note, once you have implemented a business continuity plan make sure you test it to make sure the plan is robust in a real environment.
For more help and advice visit the data recovery Manchester website.
Tagged: Business Continuity, Data Recovery, Disaster Recovery, Online Backup, Remote Backup
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