Data

The most common type of disaster recovery is the retrieval of lost or destroyed data. A business can’t function going forward if they can’t retrieve their critical data after a disaster. Here are some steps to follow when developing your data recovery plan:

• Backup options: Company data should be securely backed up offsite and available for recovery at any time. An excellent way to do this is via online backup whereby a company’s data is backed up each night and stored far away from the company’s location.

• Delegate: Determine the person responsible for the data backup plan. They must check that the backups are running smoothly and tested regularly.

• Dress rehearsal: Practice a recovery process every few months to ensure that everything runs smoothly. Make sure that the data that is stored is easily retrieved.

• Check the location of your critical data: Make sure you know where the critical data is stored at your company. If people store their data on their desktops instead of the file server, make sure all desktops are backed up.

Contact and Communication

Assume that your normal methods of communication during a disaster or emergency will not be functioning. Instead, consider alternative communication vehicles:

• The alternatives: Should your office phone lines be down, you might want to consider using AOL instant messaging and/or Skype. Make sure that everybody in your company has each other’s cell numbers.

• VOIP/Virtual: VOIP and virtual phones are useful in situations when access to a central physical location is not possible. These services allow you to forward office lines or even create virtual lines that can be accessed from anywhere. They are practical for fielding incoming calls from clients. We once used Grasshopper as our failsafe phone system. If our phones went down, we would be able to immediately forward our calls to Grasshoppers 800 number which would then forward our calls to our personal cell numbers. Now we use M5net and it works great for our VOIP needs.

• Contact lists: It is very important to have both a physical contact list of clients and vendors as well as a virtual copy stored on an online storage site where you can access it from anywhere (LockYourDocs or VSafe, LockYourDocs is part of my company just to ensure full disclosure). Having your contact list on your unavailable file servicer is useless during an emergency.

People

It is imperative that your employees know where to go and what to do if your office or computers are down. Here are some roles and functions you should designate:

• Identify the critical functions and determine who will fill them. For example, who will contact clients and handle the insurance?

• Determine rendezvous points for evacuation scenarios.

• Designate and prepare for alternative working sites and suggest remote work facilities for a temporary period.

• Distribute the plan to all employees and upload a copy where it can be accessed by everyone.

• Put a copy of the plan somewhere that won’t be affected by data failure or office evacuation. Do not put the lone copy on the server.

• Share the plan with all new hires as part of their company introduction. In addition, review the plan with all employees on a quarterly basis.

All businesses experience some kind of data failure or emergency situation. It’s just a matter of time and magnitude. Most people don’t think it will happen to them, but all it takes is one small instance to ruin a company. The best protection against such a scenario is a well thought-out plan that’s been tested and communicated to everyone. Make sure  you are prepared.

Disaster Recovery Photo via Shutterstock

From Small Business Trends

The Disaster Recovery Plan

We’re going to explore how to begin that disaster recovery plan and why it’s more important than ever.  I briefly touched upon this strategy in my last post, “The 10 Percent Rule for Backing Up Your Data,” in which I explained that the recovery process should always begin at the end, which, of course, is the point of failure.

Working Backwards

I’m not suggesting starting literally at the end.   First of all, it’s impossible (unless you’re a time traveler), and, second of all, no one wants to invite disaster.

Instead, ask yourself what you would do if you showed up to work and everything was missing.  Everything had crashed.  The pipes had burst and the flooding had damaged all your hardware.  Whatever that scenario might be, what’s the first thing you think about?  That first thought represents the foundation of your disaster recovery plan.

The content of that initial thought will naturally pertain to the piece of data that is most critical to the operational functionality of your business, which speaks to a vital part of disaster recovery: separating the business-critical data from the noncritical data.

What do you need for your business to be up and running?  How long can you realistically be without that data before the health of your business is severely impacted?  Asking those questions gives you the blueprint for what needs to be recovered and in what timeframe.

Today’s Environment

The biggest issue is that data is growing out of control.  If you’re not thinking about that, you’re in a lot of trouble.  The temptation is to back everything up indiscriminately, but that actually impedes on your ability to get your business back up when a failure takes place.  Sifting through all that data, if it hasn’t been organized and prioritized, just isn’t feasible.

Tougher recovery demands compound the problem.  Users are intolerant of any data loss or downtime, putting a lot of pressure on IT managers, who are working in environments in flux thanks to evolving technologies and a growing variety of end-points that need to be protected.

We All Need a Plan

It behooves every business to have a disaster recovery plan in place.  Every business will have some kind of data failure at some point.  It’s also important to consider that many people don’t plan for disaster because they assume it won’t happen to them.  Given a long enough timeline, though, we all experience events we don’t foresee.

A perfect example of this phenomenon is the odd weather conditions in the Northeast this summer and in October.  No one would have thought that an earthquake, albeit a mild one, and a hurricane would affect the East Coast within a week of each other.  No one thought a snowstorm would hit in October, but that’s exactly what happened.

This should serve to drive home the following point: The unpredictable has a habit of taking place.  In a world of unforeseen events, we must prepare for all eventualities.

What does that plan look like?  Stay tuned for my next post to find out.

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Image from Kheng Guan Toh/Shutterstock

From Small Business Trends

Where Disaster Recovery Begins

Set It and Forget It
There are three common mistakes that businesses make when backing up their data:

1. No testing: When businesses back up their data, many assume their data is there, faithfully waiting for them in the same condition in which it was left. The truth is backup is not a flawless process. Glitches occur and hardware fails. The only way to make sure that data is intact and that all systems are go is to routinely test the data you’re backing up. When you test your data, not only do you have peace of mind, but you also have the opportunity to catch a problem before it becomes a disaster.

2. No planning: No one thinks that a disaster is going to happen to them, but the reality is that unforeseen events do take place. A lot of businesses back their data up, but they spend little time thinking about the recovery process. The first step is to think about the recovery and work backwards from there.

3. Backing everything up: Not all data is created equal. If your house were on fire, would you run in to save a ballpoint pen? No, you would run in to make sure no one was in the house. It’s the same thing with data. If disaster strikes, you want to make sure you can access the most critical data immediately.

OK, so now you know what to avoid when protecting your data. What can and should you be doing? First, you must understand the 10 percent rule.

What is the 10 percent rule?
Only 10 percent of your data is critical.

That’s right. That means that 90 percent of your company data is mostly static. Does that mean that you don’t need to protect that 90 percent? Not at all. It means that you should prioritize. As noted above, not all data is created equal. If your systems encounter a widespread failure, you want to have a plan in place that recovers the most essential information right away. That way, business downtime is reduced. If you don’t prioritize your data, you’ll waste your time recovering non-critical data and your downtime could be much, much longer.

So what exactly does critical mean?
Critical varies from organization to organization, but if a file does not change within a certain amount of time, it should be moved into a retention vault. Only changing data should be considered critical.

While all data is arguably important, organizations need a structured or tiered approach to ensure critical applications and systems are operational first. Once these systems are running and accessible, the static, non-critical files can be restored.

From Small Business Trends

The 10 Percent Rule for Backing Up Your Data

More data and more ways of storing that information may mean more confusion for small business owners and entrepreneurs looking to protect themselves.  The purpose of this post is to explain what you can do to safeguard your data, to advise against bad practices, and to debunk myths about data backup and the cloud.

So what’s the first thing you should do to protect your data? I’ll give you one guess.  Wrong.  It’s not back up your data.  The first thing you need to do is determine what data should be backed up and in what order it should be recovered.  Let me guess: You think that all of your data should be backed up, because it’s all important, right?  But, guess what, in the event of systemic data failure, treating all your data equally will hamstring your efforts to restore your systems and get your business up and running in a timely manner.

Here is a disclaimer: This all depends on how much data you’re storing.  If you’re an on-the-go entrepreneur working from a single laptop, you can quite easily back up all your data.  Most businesses, however, should prioritize data in their data backup and recovery planning.

Now, let’s say you’ve culled the critical data from the noncritical data (I’ll explain what this means and how to do this this in greater detail in my next post, “The 10 Percent Rule.”)  Now what do you do?  You back up your data, which, of course, is at the crux of what this entire series is all about.  Over the course of the series, I’ll provide you with practical tips on how to back up, I’ll troubleshoot specific problems and I’ll offer case studies, but the underlying credo will always be the same: Take an active role in safeguarding your data. It’s the lifeblood of any business.

Backing up is not a one-time deal.  It’s a consistent, interactive effort, whereby you test elements and adjust according to results.  It may sound like a lot of work, but you’ll thank me in the end.  After all, 100 percent of businesses experience some form of data failure at one point or another.   Will you be prepared when it happens to you?

From Small Business Trends

Protecting Your Data: An Introduction