With our lives currently revolving around tech gadgets and the internet, the era of printed copies has long gone and has been replaced with data and IT infrastructure. In such a scenario losing access to primary data both at the individual as well as at the enterprise level is a nightmare. It can halt our lives and jeopardize the existence of businesses. And this is exactly why data security today has become a hot topic and a necessity more than a choice.
Imagine that you run a company and because of an unseen disaster, which can be anything from a minor power outage that will require a while to recover from - to a cyber attack or a non-technological calamity like a flood, cyclone, fire or theft at your office premises, you lose access to the IT data. What will you do now?
Downtime can mean a significant loss of business and revenue. It can lead to derailed customer interactions, a decrease in employee productivity and a standstill in business processes. And, this is why having backups and a disaster recovery strategy is a good idea. This way you might not be able to prevent disasters but at least you can ensure that if a disaster strikes then you can stand back on your feet with all the data and applications as soon as possible.
Now before discussing anything further about the backup and data recovery strategies let's try to understand the difference between backup and disaster recovery.
The Difference between Backup and Recovery
What is Data Backup?
Backup means creating an extra copy or multiple copies of the data to restore it in case of accidental deletion, problems with software upgrades or data corruption. Always follow the 3-2-1 Backup rule. 3 Copies of your data, on 2 different media, and 1 copy offline and offsite.
What is data recovery?
Data recovery refers to the plans and procedures of quickly re-establishing access to IT resources, data and applications after a disaster strikes. By establishing a solid protocol, a company can ensure data protection and rapid recovery.
Why is backup and data recovery important?
Suppose if you lose data because of an unseen calamity and it takes you hours to deal with the data loss, then, in that case, those hours will be the hours of idleness where your employees or your partners may lose productivity because the loss has rendered them unable to carry out any critical tasks because the data can't be accessed. In a big organization, these hours can be crucial and can pronounce a huge financial loss for a company. And in the case recovery took days, this can also lead to a permanent loss of customers – nobody wants that! Hence, data backup and recovery are of utmost importance to just about any organization.
Best data backup and recovery strategies
Before beginning with the disaster recovery solutions it is first important to understand the significance of prioritizing workloads. Many larger organizations have RTOs (recovery time objectives) and RPOs (recovery point objectives) that show the importance of each workload to their company. They classify the workloads as Tier1, Tier 2, Tier 3 and so on based upon their importance. So in case of a disaster or emergency the company first needs to up and run the Tier 1 workloads which are most critical to the business and the less important ones can be recovered later. Hence defining workloads can assist in providing a framework for disaster recovery.
Getting Your Disaster Recovery Planning In Place
Cloud-based backup and recovery processes
Cloud backups are becoming increasingly popular in both small and large organizations. This backup and recovery solution has gained popularity because of the multiple benefits that it provides. Many cloud solutions offer the infrastructure for data storage and some of them also provide the tools for managing backup and disaster recovery processes. Moreover, by opting for cloud computing you can avoid the large investments that will be otherwise required for additional infrastructure and for costs of managing the environment. Choosing cloud technology is also beneficial as it allows for the geographical distance that you need to keep the data safe in case a natural calamity hits your region and it also gives you rapid scalability.
With cloud storage, one can also opt for both on-premises and cloud-based backup solutions. Following this hybrid cloud approach would allow you to reap the benefit of duplication and geographical distance while still allowing you to keep your production environment operating smoothly.
ADS Consulting Group's cloud backup solution not only stays on the bleeding edge of cyber-security, but also provides the physical security of armed guards 24/7 in an airtight controlled climate that surpasses all current existing data center infrastructure management (DCIM) offerings. If a disaster strikes we can restore your servers stored in our cloud backup solution to our ADS Cloud infrastructure to minimize your downtime.
On-premises
In the case you want to self-host your backup only on-premise, there are some great solutions available as well. Local backups cover a multitude of recovery issues, and will not only provide compliance to strict data privacy policies but will also ensure business continuity.
However, this recovery strategy has its flaws, such as the case of a natural calamity that hits your region than both your primary and secondary data systems might be affected. Hence, it makes sense to store your data at two different geographical locations. This secondary data center can be located across town, or across the country depending upon how you choose to balance the other factors like performance, data recovery time, and physical accessibility to the secondary data center.
Once you have decided on the geographical location for data storage then you can choose the type of technology or process you want to use for disaster recovery.
The most effective backup and recovery plans protect data in both onsite and cloud-based backups. And it's not as hard as you might think to safeguard your business continuity in this way.
Disaster recovery as a service
A data disaster and recovery service can be based in the cloud and / or onsite. In any case, it's imperative that every organization makes this a priority, especially as their intellectual property grows virtually every day.
The leadership team at ADS Consulting Group brings decades of experience to the table and are here to help prevent your business from grinding to a halt in the case of a disaster. One easy call and help will be on the way! Get in touch and we'll give you a free strategy call which should be of high value whether we work together or not. "An ounce of prevention…" well, you know the rest. Let's chat! Call us at (310)541-8584 x 100 or send us an email at info@adscon.com to start the conversation.