Backup and Disaster Recovery or BDR is a key component of a holistic security and continuity strategy for your business. Today’s businesses are so heavily dependent upon IT that if they experience a disaster that temporarily or permanently limits their access to their data, they could lose tens of thousands of dollars – or their entire business.
Data has to be backed up and must be made readily available in a format that can be retrieved quickly. Any recovery time amounting to more than an hour or two can be disastrous for your company.
As we consider Backup and Disaster Recovery – and how good (or not) your current BDR provider is at his/her job, there are several things we must consider regarding the data that is being backed up. Here are a few questions.
- What kind of data are you backing up? – customer records, proprietary applications, internal process data, production computations
- What is your current BDR strategy? – none, local on computer or server, cloud
- What compliance requirements are placed on your business? – HITECH, PCI DSS, HIPAA, SOX
The answers to these questions give you – and your BDR provider – a baseline for your strategy. The answers tell you what you are backing up, what is currently in place, and what your required security/backup level is for the proposed BDR solution.
So, here’s the “meat” of the topic. Is your current BDR provider good at what he/she does? Here’s the simple answer. If they haven’t talked to you about these ten things, they may not be right for your business.
Have they asked you:
- Have you had file corruption or data loss in the past?
- How much of your company is dependent upon data, and how much pain would you be in if you lost access to your data?
- How long could your business survive without access to your data, applications, and files?
- What is your current security strategy? Are you trying to backup data that is not adequately protected from the beginning?
- What are the essential, highly data-dependent areas of your company?
- How old is your current BDR solution and what recent investments have you made in it?
- Do you use company mobile devices or BYO devices?
- What do you have in place to synchronize and backup data between in-house and mobile devices?
- What is your overall BDR protocol? Do you have a written document that you regularly review with your employees?
- What is the essential data? – The files, databases, and applications that you absolutely cannot lose and continue to operate.
A good BDR expert will go over all of these questions and more with you in designing a BDR plan for your business.
Want to know more about BDR? Please contact me and I can put you in touch with my BDR Specialist Team here at CPU.
Read How Good is YOUR IT Provider at Disaster Recovery? 10 Things YOU Need to Know, and the other informative articles in this issue of Soar to Success magazine.
