Disaster recovery, business continuity, Disaster preparation Recovery planning - no matter what you call it, the question beckons "Are you ready, should something happen?" What about your vendors or suppliers, how does your company continue if one of your vendors or supply companies are affected by an outage? Not every outage is from a natural disaster. What will your company do if you or a vendor/supplier has been affected by a cyber-attack?
If you or your company have a plan with a regular testing cycle and recent updates, please stop reading. In the chaotic aftermath of a natural disaster or a major security breach, businesses will be glad they’ve spelled out in writing who is responsible for which aspects of a recovery.
If you are not testing and updating your plan on a regular basis, then today may be the day you need to consider "How will you survive an outage?" You have identified, in writing, roles and responsibilities. You have defined which applications are mission critical.
Begin with the question, "Can your business survive an outage?" This can be as small as a computer system going offline, loss of access to the internet, loss of phone service or actually having mother nature wreak havoc...
Again, Can you or your business survive and continue offering your products or services? Remember, no business exists in a bubble: Your vendors or suppliers could also be affected by a disaster, disrupting your supply chain.
Today, many folks are taking advantage, in some small part, of the cloud or cloud based services. The question is, are you? Your competition certainly is. I am living in an area that was recently hit with 3 fires, record snow levels and now there is a fear of raging rivers... Welcome to sunny California. Folks in Santa Rosa and Paradise were minding their own business and killing it, when disaster struck.
Ubiquitous Technology Business Support & Consulting (Shameless plug) and other Consultants can help prepare for this.
Consider your company and what downtime/loss can actually cost.
1. Data replication
2. Definition of priorities
3. Inventory
4. work strategy
These items will give your team or you a place to begin. If you are a small or medium business, creating a plan and testing it may put undo pressure on you or your team. Should you be fortunate enough to have 10 or more souls working with you, what is your plan?
Please note, this is not a scare tactic. This is a reality check. Thing happen. There are boiler plates and many ways to accomplish this project. Once you have completed the project, then please test it. Can your business survive and thrive?
Automotive repair shops, Lawyers, medical, manufacturers, professionals, sales, marketing and more will all be affected should a disaster happen. Where does your company or business have: up-to-date duplicates of all your important records, contracts, and documents, and keep them off-site in a safe deposit box or secured in the cloud. Additionally, a backup and disaster recovery solution can keep data safe from natural disasters as well as cyber-attacks or hardware failure—by providing secure, continuous backup and rapid data restoration onsite and via the cloud. This is a good way to keep your client’s important and sensitive data safe at all times as well.
There are reality's and there is life. Every company should have a plan and regularly review this plan. Ubiquitous Technology Business Support & Consulting, has experience with Small safety, police and other departments, Governments, small businesses, etc. to ask the questions and devise a plan that ensures management knows what will happen should something occur. Our goal is to help our customers know how they will communicate with employees about what they should do in case of an emergency. In the chaotic aftermath of a natural disaster or a major security breach, businesses will be glad they’ve spelled out in writing who is responsible for which aspects of a recovery.
