The world is full of uncertainty. We are not sure what will happen next, we can surely predict but we cannot comprehend what will happen next. Same is true for natural disasters. We can predict them but we definitely cannot stop them. But, this does not mean that we cannot be prepared for them.
Types of Disasters
There is a wide range of disasters, such as; hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes etc. All of which can be very disastrous and damaging for a company. A DR Backup plan is necessary for an enterprise if they want to stand a chance against surviving these disasters. Especially if they are in the area which is most vulnerable to these disasters.
Disasters are not all natural. Meaning they can be caused by humans as well. Seems confusing right? Well, it’s not. Cyber-attacks such as ransomware are caused by humans alone. Nature has nothing to do with them. Although they might not be as devastating in terms of structural damage and life threatening as compared to natural disasters, they can surely cause enough damage to an enterprise to put them out of business. In the last few years there has been a vast increase in ransomware and many companies have fallen prey to these. This is another Reason a DE plan is absolutely necessary for a company.
Other than this, human errors have also been a leading cause of data loss according to different sources. As small and unlikely as it may sound, human actually do make mistakes. Instead of betting all your money on hoping that no one will make a mistake, it is best to create a DR Backup for your data, in order to recover it whenever needed.
Importance of DR Backup
As discussed earlier, disasters cannot be taken lightly. They can latterly put a business out of business in a matter of days. Having a proper reliable DR Backup pan is of utmost importance. In terms of both, data protection and business continuity.
Natural Disasters
Suppose you are hit by an oncoming disaster. After the dust settles you would normally then decide on what to do next but then it would be too late. Most probably all your data is lost and there is nothing left to plan for. By setting up a disaster recovery plan, organizations can efficiently plan what to do in case a disaster strikes.
Let’s say you are hit by a natural disaster. Having a DR Backup plan enables you to continue operations even in the most limited circumstances possible. If your primary site is not accessible or is damaged, you can easily access all your data from a remote location and continue operations remotely until your primary site is being cleared or repaired. Or, if its completely damaged, work remotely until you find a new site. This ensures that your business is always up and running.
Cyber-Attacks
Cyber-Attacks are also a form of disaster as they can completely halt the operations of a company entirely. Let’s say you wake up one morning, drive to office and sit in your desk, impatient to start your day, just to find a message that all your files have been encrypted and you need to pay some sort of ransom for the decryption key. This is not a sight you want to see, trust me.
By leveraging a DR Backup Plan, you would have been protected against these attacks as all your data and systems would have been backed up completely so there is no need to pay ransom to gain access to your systems. This would in return save you from paying millions in ransom money and will ensure that operations continue even in case of an attack occurs.
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Human Error
Human error alone has been a big cause of data loss according to numerous reports. This is a self-inflicted disaster which can only be controlled to some extent, not entirely as humans are prone to make mistakes. This is why a DR Backup solution is preferred by organizations to help recover data in case of a major data loss.
Reducing RTOs & RPOs
Nowadays, businesses and organizations have become more active in terms of availability and productivity. This requires them to be highly available at all times throughout the year. Due to this, they simply cannot suffer downtime. A disaster, of any sort, can affect a business highly. Studies have shown that businesses can only suffer a limited amount of downtime, which is on average a month, roughly. After which they are in danger of going out of business. Small companies go out of business every year due to high amount of downtime.
Recovery Time Objective (RTOs) and Recovery Point Objective (RPOs) are two important factors in disaster recovery and downtime. For a DR plan to be efficient and reliable, both these factors, RTOs and RPOs should be as minimum as possible.
Depending upon on the company, both RPOs and RTOs should not exceed a certain value. RTO is basically the maximum time of downtime an organization can handle to recover files from backup and resume normal operations. If an organization has an RTO of 3 hours, it cannot be down for longer than that. It is as simple as that. Anything greater than this, a company will suffer greatly.
RPO, on the other hand, is the maximum amount of time an organization takes to recover files from backup and resume normal operations. Both these times should be taken into account when developing a DR Backup plan in order to ensure maximum efficiency.
StoneFly offers Disaster Recovery solutions which are cost efficient, are reliable and with RTOs and RPOs less than 15 minutes. This ensures business continuity to the highest level and keeps data highly available, always.
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Run Tests
After finally setting up your DR Backup, it is best to run regular tests on it. This will be beneficial at the time of recovery. Let’s say you run into a problem while recovering your data. You would not have identified it if you didn’t conduct any tests and would be in dismay at the time of actual recovering in the event of a disaster. By conducting tests, you can identify where the problem is and can fix it in time so that if you need to recover your data in the event of a disaster, it would be a smooth routine process.
Be Mentally Prepared
Another important thing is to be mentally prepared for a disaster. In the event a disaster strikes, accept it with wasting as little time as possible and stop worrying about what would happen, there is enough time for that later. Immediately jump to your DR Backup plan without creating any sort of panic.
StoneFly’s Solutions to DR
StoneFly offers cost-efficient and reliable disaster recovery solutions. With a wide range of clients from around the globe, StoneFly is highly ranked in the field of storage and DR Backup. DR365, CDR365, BG365, DR365V (Purpose built appliance for Veeam) and DR365Z (Purpose built appliance for Zerto) are some of the many offerings from StoneFly which provide a low cost and reliable solution for disaster recovery.
To Conclude
Natural Disasters can be a huge headache for an enterprise. They can shake the very foundation of a company, literally, but they are nothing to lose sleep over, in terms of your data at least, if you have a proper DR Backup in place. It is best to act now and worry later and get a DR Back plan today for your company, if you still haven’t.
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