While we hope that we never face a catastrophic failure with our computer systems, it can and does happen. Depending on how prepared a company is will make a big difference in how quickly things can get back to business as usual. When a serious failure occurs, we worry about whether we can recover all of the data from the failed system and how long the system will be down. Lost productivity can be very expensive when a network server fails. Keys to successful disaster recovery are quality backups, replacement hardware, and having a tested recovery plan.
There are many different options for backups these days. Online backups and hard disk backups are becoming more popular than tape backups. Online backups provide offsite data backup across the Internet. These services are affordable and work well for smaller amounts of data. Hard disk backups copy your data to external hard drives which can be taken off-site and multiple drives can be rotated. This type of backup is good for large amounts of data and provides a quick recovery. Tape backups are similar to hard drive backups because they can also be rotated off-site. However, tapes have limited capacities, need replaced yearly, and tend to have slow transfer rates. Regardless of what type of backup your company uses it is important to make sure it’s running correctly and keep a copy off-site.
It is important to create a disaster recovery plan. This plan should outline what type of backup you are using, how you monitor it, whose responsibility it is to keep a copy off-site, and what steps are required to restore your backup. Once you have a plan outlined, it’s a good idea to test it regularly. It really is not good enough to have a backup in hand if you don’t know for sure that you can restore it. Sometimes companies find out too late that the data they thought they were backing up wasn’t enough to recover their system. Running mock recoveries once a year or even more often is a great way to verify you can actually restore your data and your business.