Does Your Business Have a Disaster Recovery Plan in Place?

A disaster can come in many forms. Natural disasters, accidents, computer issues, or human error…

Your data is the most essential asset in your business, and you likely can’t afford to have your operations halted for days – or weeks – due to data loss or corruption.

A disaster can happen at any time, any day, usually at the most inconvenient time. Unless you are prepared, you’ll risk having a disaster hit before you have a plan in place to handle it.

Read on to learn five key things you should have in place to ensure your business can be back up and running as quickly as possible in the event of a disaster.

Creating your Disaster Recovery Plan

1. Have a written plan.

Just thinking through, in advance, what steps need to take place in order to get your server and computers back up and running can go a long way in getting back up and running fast. At the bare minimum, your plan should contain details on what type of disaster could happen, a step-by-step process on what to do next, who should do it, and how. In addition, include contact information for various providers, including usernames and passwords as needed. This written plan will help determine your organization’s backup, maintenance, and recovery needs.

It will also help you determine your budget and needs, depending on how quickly you need to be back up and running. Once you have the plan written, print copies to have on hand (stored in a fire-proof safe), offsite (at home), and send a copy to your IT partner.

2. Partner with a trusted professional to help you.

Trying to recover your business data after a disaster without professional help could result in a worse catastrophe. One misstep during the recovery process could result in permanently lost data or weeks of downtime. In addition, not notifying the correct people during a disaster could open your organization up to legal ramifications. Make sure you work with someone with experience in both setting up contingency plans and expertise in data recovery.

3. Have a communications plan.

For example, if a disaster strikes and your phones, email, or office is unavailable, how will you communicate with your employees & clients? Make sure your plan includes information for multiple communications methods.

4. Have an offsite backup of your data.

Always maintain a recent copy of your data offsite on a different server or storage device. Onsite backups are essential but don’t help if they get stolen, compromised, burned, or damaged during a disaster.

5. Maintain network documentation.

Assemble a blueprint of your company’s network software, data, systems, and hardware. This blueprint will make restoring your network faster, easier, and cheaper since it speeds up the process for the technicians to know where things are located and how they are configured. In addition, it will provide documentation for insurance claims of exactly what was lost in the disaster. Again, your IT professional should be able to help put this together, and they should have a copy on file with your disaster recovery plan.

If you have these items in place ahead of time, you can significantly reduce the impact of a disaster, and your business can be back up and running quickly.

If you are unsure how your disaster recovery plan holds up, reach out to us to conduct a Business IT Continuity Analysis of your organization. This analysis is the first step to seeing what is needed for your disaster recovery plan. Visit https://www.clearcomit.com/it-continuity-analysis/; or call our office at 508-205-1114 to get on our schedule.

Revised Aug. 8, 2022