A company’s most important asset is the data.
Data contains essential and sensitive information regarding the company and the customers too.
Data security incidents have been on the rise when a company places little care on safeguarding its data.
Disasters are, at many times, unpredictable; they can be natural or manmade.
Losing this data could cost your company a great deal.
Therefore, you must have a backup system to cater for these unprecedented events.
This post explores a guide to developing a disaster recovery plan for your company’s data.
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Audit Your Data Needs
Create an inventory of the systems you will be working with, such as the software, laptops, computers, servers, wireless devices, and others, to ensure all of the systems are remembered.
Be sure to create a checklist of the crucial applications and the hardware used to run them.
All necessary software should be organized and possible for re-installation when a disaster strikes because you have a solid backup system.
All you need is to click here to discover how to deploy your backups.
It would help if you were organized to ensure you do not waste time trying to track down the location of everything when a disaster strikes.
Backing up is essential, but organizing your backup system is more critical as it saves time and resources.
It is at this point you must identify the types of disasters that are likely to strike your company.
For example, you should create security features that are difficult to bypass.
However, no matter how careful companies are, cyberattacks are more advanced, bypassing a company’s security system.
Therefore, you must create a recovery plan that aligns with the types of disasters you will likely encounter in your business.
Set Your Recovery Objectives
The time your business takes to recover largely depends on the objectives you have in place.
Setting these objectives determines your business’s time before it returns to business as usual.
Consider counting the time lost as money lost. Have a checklist of your most important databases and prioritize their recovery.
These evaluations are only possible when you plan to value the amount of damage the disaster has caused your business.
In a scenario of cyberattacks, ensure you first recover the most critical database for your company’s sensitive information.
These could be primarily related to financial statements, customers’ financial information that could result in fraud, and others.
Update Your Backup System
The audit you conduct on your recovery goals should align with the technology integrated into your company’s systems.
Be sure to have two backup systems, which are on-site and off-site.
The on-site backup system is internal and entails hard drives, flash drives, and others. These can be found inside your company’s premises.
However, you must always have an off-site backup system that utilizes cloud-based technology.
Many times, a disaster strikes on-site backup systems, and you lose it all, but with a cloud backup system, you will always have extra backed data.
Cloud backup acts as a backup to your backup system. Some systems include Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud, and others.
The best solution for your backup should be the cloud, as on-site backups seem to fail to recover very resourceful data.
Implement Your Data Recovery Plan
The IT teams in a company are obligated to handle all technological systems.
A data recovery plan is not easy to handle if you do not invest in tech experts.
After identifying your needs, the first step is choosing the right method to store data.
Be sure to hire experts or outsource IT services if you need help managing an internal team.
An expert assesses the situation and knows exactly what time is required before they can fully recover the system.
When unqualified personnel tampers with the data, your company may lose very sensitive information and data.
Each situation in recovering data differs from one company to the other.
Therefore, you must formulate a recovery plan that aligns with your company’s needs.
Test Your Data Recovery Plan
Testing your data recovery plan is critical for companies because they assess and evaluate the functionality and sustainability of the system.
Notably, you should test your system and act as if you lost data to ascertain that the system will stay intact in time of need.
Effective testing strategies help your IT team to identify the parts of your system that are not effective.
After you conduct the first test, consider regular testing and evaluation of your system to determine the parts that require improvement.
Ensure you follow through with the regulations and compliance before you test your system.
Consider updating your backup system regularly. Part of the testing should include regular maintenance.
A data recovery plan must be prioritized in a company.
This is because data is critical as it forms the base of an organization.
Since disasters are unpredictable, every company must incorporate a recovery plan for their business before it is too late.
A company’s data costs money, and every hour that is lost without you being in control of your data, each hour costs your business considerable amounts of revenue.
