Don't Leave Your Disaster Recovery Plan 'Til After the Disaster

1/24/2019 (Permalink)

Disaster recovery planning is one of those things that your IT Department usually worries about just after you've had flood that takes our your datacenter. As the water rises and the electrical circuits start to trips out, the boss will call down and shout something about "calling the disaster recovery team" to get everything back on track ASAP.

This is usually when you remind him that he didn't sign the proposal. The water will carry on rising and the computers will carry on fizzling out, and the data on them will eventually be erased. As the remaining IT team wave goodbye to the boss who failed to sign the proposal, they then sit down with the new boss and hatch a plan, plan to make sure that if everything goes wrong, they can get it all back and run again.

Of course, you don't have to go overboard with DR, it can be as simple as making sure you've got backups, but even those need to be cared for. So, just in case I've worried you enough for you to think that maybe you ought to be protecting your data somehow, according to SERVPRO of Ventura, here are a ways you can make sure you're properly covered and won't suffer a massive data loss when the ceiling falls in.

Take Regular Backups

This sound obvious, and to many, but so many people take a bunch of backups and then pop the tapes in the cupboard next to the server room or pop them in a safe in the accountant's office.

What happens if the building is flattened? How do you handle it when you come to restore from the tapes, and you realized that although you have a fire-proof safe, it's not very heat proof. Melted tapes don't work well in the new tape drive. Neither do melted CD's.

Backups should be taken off-site ideally, SERVPRO of Ventura will do this for you. They turn up in a secure van and take your tapes to a secure off-site storage center, and when the worst happens, you give them a call.

There is no excuse for not having a disaster recovery plan and if you find yourself trying to justify the expense, ask yourself how much it would cost if your entire data infrastructure were to be lost?

For more information, visit www.SERVPROventura.com or call us 24/7 hotline (805) 656-3911