Disaster Recovery

by Ian Cutler

"SMBs will go out of business if they cannot get to their data in the first 24 hours after a crisis." - Gartner

You would be surprised at how many small and medium businesses do not take Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity seriously. I think I can safely assume most, if not all, businesses are taking backups of some description, if not now is a good time to start! A backup is all well and good but there are additional factors to take into account which are often overlooked:

1 What data does the backup contain? Is it just a daily backup of company and user data?

2 Is the backup schedule set up to get the most effective snapshot of your system?

3 Is the backup being taken offsite?

4 How quickly can the systems be back-up and running?

5 Can you be sure of a full recovery?

Having a backup is only a small part of a Disaster Recovery plan.

The Scary Bit

The Disaster Recovery statistics do not take into account the costs involved while your systems are down.

Coupling the costs incurred during the downtime of a disaster with the possibility of never being able to recover and restore all the data then this can be a costly exercise to a business - especially if a Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plan is not in place.

The Disaster Recovery Plan

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity should not be confused with each other. Disaster Recovery usually relates to the IT infrastructure, systems and data and is a part of the Business Continuity plan. Business Continuity is usually the term given to a company’s overall survival strategy in the event of a disaster. Although separate they are not mutually exclusive and the Disaster Recovery plan should be worked on in parallel with any Business Continuity plan.

As mentioned earlier it is not enough to just have a backup, a business needs to know the importance of the data being backed up, the priority of the data, the cost of downtime and the cost of data loss. A Disaster Recovery Plan will not only address all the details but will save your company money should the unthinkable happen. It is better to be pro-active and not reactive.

1. Get to know what it is that keeps your business going.

The first stage of the Disaster Recovery Plan is to look at what data your company houses and prioritise it’s importance to your business. Are emails the top of your list? Users and company work on a file server? Or do you have a large database of client and financial data? The idea is to have knowledge of your company’s data, where it stored, how your business interacts with it and how you would cope without it.

2. Calculate the cost of downtime.

This part requires a look at the cost to the business of the data being unavailable for significant amount of time. The cost is not just calculated in financial loss but also in loss of business and other criteria ie employee, customer, legal, and obligations.

3. Work out what is the best backup solution and schedule for your systems.

Not all your data will have the same backup requirements. For example a weekly backup, which is fine for server System State, certainly isn’t going to be enough for a company with a large file server or business critical databases. Likewise a backup which creates a continuous mirror of data would be overkill for a weekly System State snapshot. An appropriate schedule and backup solution needs to be implemented to make sure all avenues are covered.

Businesses running 7x24x365, such as hotels, which have few opportunities for backup windows should consider implementing a continuous protection replication backup solution.

4. Remove the backed up data from the building.

This may seem obvious but if there is a fire, flood or structural damage to the building there is a very good chance the backup media will be damaged along with the IT equipment. Removing the backup media offsite in rotation will certainly be of massive benefit if the business has to relocate to temporary or new premises.

There are online backup solutions available which backup systems over the Internet and allow for restoration via download. These can be very useful in recovering accidentally deleted files but a full recovery can be a very slow process.

5. Run and test the Disaster Recovery Plan.

Making sure your Disaster Recovery plan works is the final part. Keeping a watchful eye on your backups is a must as sometimes servers crash or the scheduler for whatever reason doesn’t start. It is foolish to set the backup schedule and sit back!

Evolving the Disaster Recovery plan as your business evolves and testing the solution will make sure that in the event of a disaster the cost to your business and disruptions are minimal.