It’s always surprising just how resistant some companies can be when it comes to putting a solid disaster data recovery procedure in place. Some feel they are just too busy, others don’t see the need, and some simply don’t want to think about a possible future where their critical data, applications, and operations are just plain gone.
But it happens, and more often than you may think. Here are four reasons why your company needs a disaster recovery plan and why that plan can save your business in times of trouble.
1. Hardware Is Impermanent
We all have experience with faulty hardware, old hardware, and the occasional dropped computer. All machines break eventually and when your hardware goes up against a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina, an accident like a flooded basement, or an intentional attack from a virus or other intrusion, it will fail.
A good disaster recovery procedure, on the other hand, backs up data with the help of a secure host and puts your information out of danger, even if your hardware and IT infrastructure fails. Once the new system is in place after the calamity, your data can be re-downloaded without further disruption.
2. Humans Are a Weak Link
User error is the bane of any IT department. From downloading viruses, to entering poor passwords, to deleting precious data, mistakes often take nothing less than a single bad decision or errant click. That’s why your staff needs a safety net, usually in the form of quality assurance programs and online backup solutions which can roll back the clock and undo mistakes without data loss.
3. Data is Increasingly Valuable
How long could your company continue to function if you lost all your data today? A few hours? A day? Most likely, your operation would grind to a halt immediately as staff members frantically searched for a way to keep going without order numbers, phone numbers, email addresses, credit card information, and each of the countless data points that are no longer backed up in hard copy.
Disaster recovery plans are designed to automatically preserve all that data, placing it in a secure and frequently-updated repository while laying down the exact steps necessary to restore your system fast. Without such a plan, it is a very real possibility that your data, the data you’ve built up and relied upon for years if not decades, could simply disappear—irrecoverable.
4. Customers Expect Flawless Connectivity
Facing total loss of your IT infrastructure and all data therein is a real possibility, but still an unlikely one. More likely are frequent small interruptions or system downtime, resulting from any number of problems that each take time (minutes, hours, or longer) to repair.
The problem here is that modern customers don’t like or accept downtime of any length—particularly when they’ve paid for a service or handed over their personal information. Frequent downtime or extended downtime can both spook customers who may be only too happy to switch to your competitor.
Grundig IT provides high quality disaster planning and digital backup solutions to businesses of every size in the Bay Area, CA region. To learn about the affordable, secure data management services we offer please contact us today at 925-528-9081.
