How safe is your businesses critical data?

What happens if your server dies and you lose all your most important data? Would your business survive?

I thought that this week that I would talk a little about disaster recovery because many businesses I meet don’t really understand what it is, or how important it is.

Business owners look at IT just as a cost but really, how important is IT to your business?

Let me give you an example.

What would happen if your staff turned up for work tomorrow and you find your server crashed and all data was lost? You would still need to pay staff wages but staff wouldn’t be able to work. A scary thought for any business owner!

Protecting your businesses IT infrastructure and critical data should be on top of your list of important things to consider for day to day operations. Disaster recovery can be an extra cost to your business, however the benefits of having these systems in place far outweigh the lost revenue from data loss. Loss of revenue isn’t the only thing you should consider. Also think of the legal implications to your business and your clients. Businesses in some industries require you to keep records for a number of years and expect you to be able to access this information when requested immediately. Are you able to achieve this?

When looking at your companies IT disaster recovery plan consider some of the below:

• Email – How heavily does your business reply on it?
• Backups – is your data being backed up regularly? When was the last time you did a test restore
• Internet access – how long can you be without the Internet at work?
• Day to day files – Are they backed up? Would your business be able to operate without them?
• 3rd party applications – does your business reply on multiple different programs to operate? What happens if you can’t access them.
• Building access – is all your data stored in one place?
• Laptop lost – do your staff store important data on their laptops? What happens if they lose it?

All in all, moving forward into the future cloud will become an important piece in every businesses IT as it can benefit in so many different ways.