We’ve all learned numerous lessons from 9/11, and for each business the lessons have been different. But two of the more valuable lessons were:
- Have an up-to-date, viable, disaster recovery plan in place, and
- Use off-site data backups.
Data backups are a necessary evil, in that the need for data space always eclipses capacity–or, more aptly put–a capacity that’s affordable. And data backups are tricky: How do you know what you need? Do you know what you would do if you lost your office tomorrow? What would you do if you lost access to all your data? Your answer should be: Go to an alternate location and pull out a loose-leaf binder that contains a step-by-step recovery plan. If that’s not possible, then start with the steps below:
1. Keep a list of the software and hardware you have in your office. Keep these lists updated and off-site. It won’t help if you have all this wonderful information saved to the hard drive that has just crashed.
2. Back up all critical data daily. Make a list of all the data that is mission critical to your operations. Make sure that data, in particular, is backed up every day off-site.
3. Choose a backup system that will be there when you need it. There are all sorts of solutions: CD-RW, DAT (tape), NAS, Ultrium, etc. But, when you’re dealing with magnetic media, you’re bound to have a snafu somewhere. For smaller businesses, we recommend using a secure internet-based solution for backing up files. For larger businesses, redundant, off-site, outsourced solutions are preferable.
4. Make sure the backup is easy to do. The more complicated a process is, the more likely it will be done either incorrectly or not at all.
5. Ensure that the backup process is being done. Periodically, check the backed-up data to make sure that recent data is present.
It may take some time to implement these procedures. After all, change can be difficult. However, being able to sleep soundly at night knowing that your critical business data is safe, secure, accessible and intact makes it all worth it. You can’t control events that happen during the course of day-to-day business, but you can control your level of preparedness and your reaction to those events.
This entry was posted on Sunday, January 20th, 2008 at 10:08 pm and is filed under Hardware, Infrastructure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.Leave a Reply
