After being in the industry for more than 5 years, we are starting to identify a pattern among most small or medium-sized companies – a lot of these companies are overlooking the importance of having a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP).
As an outsourced IT department, we provide customer service support to resolve day-to-day ad hoc IT issues and help our clients to maintain their IT infrastructures. However, bad things do happen to good people (shocking!)…servers might crash or data could magically disappear into thin air. *Cue mass hysteria*
It is our responsibility as an IT partner (or more preferably, as your IT partner) to prepare a DRP for our clients should bad unspeakable things happen to them (IT-related, of course).
The main goal of this plan is to minimise the negative effects of a disaster on a company and get them back on their feet as soon as possible. A DRP covers various aspects – from coming up with a system to release mass notifications, to establishing a physical interim base to work from. However, our role in this as an IT partner covers the following aspects:
- hardware,
- software applications,
- connectivity and
- data recovery.
With those items in mind, it is vital to have an updated inventory of all IT hardwares (networks, servers, desktop, laptops, wireless devices etc) and software applications. Subsequently, we would have to break this down based on priorities. What do our clients need up and running as soon as possible to get their business on track?
Getting data restored is just as vital. According to DTI/PricewaterhouseCoopers, seven out of 10 small businesses who have experienced a major data loss go out of business within a year (check out more horror stories about data loss here).
A good backup solution should be able to recover the latest data easily whenever you need it.
The most ideal solution is an automated data backup system which will conduct a system image of files and applications on a regular basis without any effort from the user. To be effective, backup solutions should not be executed manually.
However, having just one backup system might not be sufficient. We prefer to have a backup of your backup. This second backup should be based off site or uploaded online as a form of insurance.
Do you have a DRP in place?
