Disaster Recovery: Scary Statistics Stress the Need for Increased IT Planning and Protection

Picture arriving to work and finding that you have lost your business's IT

infrastructure to a power outage, fire or flood. If you were not prepared and did not have a disaster recovery plan already in place, your business would likely have to shut down. Alternatively, if it did recover, it is unlikely that your business would achieve the previous level of success.

43% of companies that experience a major data loss do not reopen (DTI/Price Waterhouse Coopers)

80% of companies that do not recover from a data loss within one month are likely to go out of business in the immediate future (Bernstein Crisis Management)

93% of companies that experience a data disaster are out of business within 5 years. (U.S bureau of Labor)

Disaster recovery planning has become the cornerstone trade of most IT professionals and upper management alike. Although upper management and the IT team don't usually collaborate, creating a Business Continuity plan and a Disaster recovery plan bring the two departments together for the company's emergency backbone. The BCP and DRP in collaboration outlines procedures in the event of a disaster so that the business can function with minimal or little down time. Creating a success and effective business plan consists of:

1. Detecting a severe disaster: A monitoring system should be in place, preferably 24/7 to recognize the problem as soon as it surfaces.

2. Damage Assessment: IT management will detect what sort of damage your business has incurred. Whether it be a company network, an email server or your entire IT infrastructure it is important to know what exactly has been affected and act accordingly.

3. Recovery Time objective: A recovery time objective (RTO) is the amount of time and service level which a business process must be restored to avoid unacceptable consequences that your business would have communicated to the IT management team associated with a break in continuity.

4. Resume Critical Business processes: The number one priority for an IT management team is to resume the business' critical processes which ensure the firm's ability to protect its assets, meets critical needs, and satisfies mandatory regulations and requirements.

Once you have your companies disaster plan established, you will need to make sure that your IT team holds up their end of the bargain. Data backups (Both hosted and onsite) will give your company the ability to access data, application and even emulate hardware if a storage, power or network failure were to happen at any time. Implementing these services in desperate times requires IT management software installed on every device that could be affected by a disaster.

In conclusion:

A disaster recovery plan helps businesses operate during disaster that without would devastate a company's IT system. Without a clear and concise plan in place, most business will never fully recover. To learn what solution is right for your business, contact a provider of disaster recovery services today.