In business, disruptive events do not know size or industry – they can happen to organizations at the drop of a hat, with most of the affected parties not having a clue as to how to react. This is where a disaster recovery plan comes into play; though no one ever wants to use it, it’s better to be safe than sorry. With that being said, a good starting point for creating your disaster recovery plan is understanding and having answers to the following points:
- How employees will communicate with one another
- Where they will go to resume work
- How employees will continue to work
A great place to start is with a Business Impact Analysis (BIA), which identifies and evaluates the potential effects of a disruption to business functions and processes. This is perhaps the most critical part of your disaster recovery plan because it identifies what you could lose if disaster strikes and threatens your business infrastructure.
Impacts could include:
- Loss or delay of sales or income
- An increase in expenses to fix the issue
- Customer dissatisfaction and abandonment
- Increase in marketing costs to bring back customers
It is important to adequately plan for an emergency. Think about it this way: your office building probably has a sprinkler system in case of a fire. Use the same concept when approaching those “what if” disruptive event scenarios – essentially, you need to have a sprinkler system for your infrastructure and data in case of a potential disaster. Just like you would test the sprinkler system every month or so, you need to complete daily data replications and backup management for your critical data to ensure it continues to live on despite whatever event may come about. With Neovera as a partner, your disaster recovery plan is well-equipped with a team of experts on-hand 24x7x365 to assist with any and all spur-of-the-moment issues that may arise. Not only will they know the ins and outs of your disaster recovery plan, but they will have a great understanding for the vital data and infrastructure that is at stake.
If you’re reading this and questioning to yourself if you have a disaster recovery plan for your physical and/or virtual environments, chances are you don’t. Get one. Quickly.