A disaster recovery plan helps businesses mitigate the impact that unplanned events can have on productivity and revenue. Without a proper DR plan in place, companies can suffer from lost data, out-of-budget expenses, and reputational damage.
Backups are one of the most important parts of a disaster recovery plan. Learn more about the best ways to protect your company’s data.
Data Backup
Data backup is the process of copying data into a form that can be restored in the event of a disaster. This can include anything from storing duplicate data on different storage types to creating an offsite backup of your business’s information.
Backups can be used to recover files that have been deleted, or to restore data lost due to a malware attack or ransomware. But it’s important to remember that no backup is 100% reliable. Human error can lead to the loss of information, such as forgetting to save or misplacing spreadsheets, or even spilling a drink on a computer.
Hackers and malware authors aren’t picky about who they target, so all organizations need to be prepared. Backup and disaster recovery services can help you keep your clients’ data safe, even in the event of a data loss catastrophe. To do this, it’s important to understand RTO and RPO goals. By using these goals to determine what workloads are most critical and how often they need to be backed up, you can ensure that DR is executed within the desired RTO and RPO.
Offsite Storage
While onsite storage is useful for backup, it can’t be used during disaster recovery. If a building is destroyed by fire or water, the onsite data is lost. This is why offsite storage is essential to your business.
Offsite storage, also known as “vaulting”, ensures redundancy by storing copies of data on remote servers. These servers are physically located away from the organization’s premises to reduce the risk of disasters such as natural disasters, theft and technical failure.
Offsite storage is not without its disadvantages, however. For example, some offsite storage servers are routinely taken offline for preventive maintenance. During this time, access to the data is severely limited or cut off completely. Thankfully, most offsite storage providers give clients plenty of notice ahead of time when this is the case.
Recovery Time Objectives (RTO)
The RTO and RPO are important in determining backup strategies as well as the amount of time and data that can be lost during a disaster. Both are crucial for business continuity and help organizations choose the best recovery solutions.
It’s important to be realistic when establishing RTOs for different systems and applications. For example, an online payment system may require a shorter RTO than a content management system. The RTO should also align with the risks that each application faces.
To maintain a low RTO, it’s necessary to invest in technologies that provide real-time alerts and allow you to restore data quickly and easily. A high-performance disaster recovery solution with failover capabilities can make a huge difference. Choosing a solution that includes live replication can further reduce RTOs and ensure uninterrupted business operations during a disaster. This allows businesses to prioritize applications that can’t afford to be down for a long period of time.
Recovery Point Objectives (RPO)
Recovery point objectives and recovery time objectives (RTO) are important metrics to consider when designing a disaster recovery strategy. They can be used to quantify how much time you can afford to lose data when a disaster strikes.
RPO is a key factor when it comes to determining the best backup solution for your business. To determine an appropriate RPO, you must understand your company’s operations and what the worst-case scenario could look like. This process involves analyzing the impact of downtime on employees, customers, revenue, and reputation.
Setting realistic RPO and RTO goals is an effective way to set expectations for your team when it comes to disaster recovery. It’s also a great way to uncover novel areas where you can improve your recovery capabilities and recalibrate existing expectations. The resulting plan will ensure that your organization can continue operating during a disaster. It will allow you to recover faster and with minimal data loss.