In today’s world where all businesses rely on data to be successful, it has never been more important to have a disaster recovery plan in place. Being successful in business is all about contingencies, isn’t it? It’s important to have a plan in place for when sales slow or when adapting a new operational policy. While businesses often plan for day-to-day operational occurrences, they sometimes lose sight of the bigger picture. While the day-to-day operations are important, they would simply cease with a system crash or widespread data corruption. If there isn’t a DRP (Disaster Recovery Plan) in place it could take weeks to restore the systems. That’s where offsite backup services Toronto comes into play.
The 5 Phases of Disaster Recover Plans
The very nature of disasters dictates that they are random and cannot be predicted. That makes it even more important to have data backup and recovery solutions in place. By having a plan in place, no matter when the disaster strikes, your business can recovery quickly and efficiently. This minimizes the amount of downtime. It is important to understand the steps of a well-designed DRP.
- Prevention
- Mitigation
- Preparedness
- Response
- Recovery
Prevention
This is a key factor in a successful DRP. Prevention means planning. Do you have plans for how to replace damaged computer hardware, office furniture, network infrastructure, and data? What about power contingencies? In some natural disasters, power can be out for days. Do you have emergency fueling services available to keep your business running during a power outage? Does your current DRP have that contingency built in?
Not all disasters are natural. Some are caused by viruses and malware. In order to protect and prevent this type of disaster from occurring, it is important all systems be updated with the latest operating system updates and virus definitions. By doing this, many disasters can be averted.
Mitigation
This is important because while all disasters can wreak havoc, the amount of damage can be minimized. For instance, if your backups are only running every Sunday morning, and a crash happens on Saturday night, you would lose a week’s worth of data. By shifting the backups to occur every morning, you would only lose a day’s worth of information. Obviously, the shorter the interval between backups, the fewer data would be lost.
Another way to mitigate the impact of a disaster is to have redundancy build in to your network. Having another server available to migrate the data to, would make recovery quick. Also having a battery backup or an emergency generator available for those times when power is out would be an advantage too.
Preparedness
One way to be prepared is to have disaster recovery Toronto services provided by Pathway Communications. This allows for backups and servers to not be maintained and located on the premises of the business. By moving them out of the physical location of the business, if a server crash happens or the system is compromised by hackers or a virus, we can simply restore the data and migrate your server to another available one. This cuts down on downtime immensely.
If the server and data backups are only stored on the business premises, if a fire, flood, or other natural disaster occurs and the building is destroyed, you not only lose your live data, but also the backups. You would have to start from scratch in this scenario. It is one reason why cloud-based systems have become so popular.
In a remote environment where there are numerous devices connecting from offsite locations, it is important to have cloud-based backups. They ensure all information sent from every device, is backed up with regularity so if any network device is damaged or destroyed, the information can be recovered.
Response
When your business uses offsite backup services Toronto from Pathway Communications, you can rest assured the response will be quick and efficient. We are constantly monitoring network communications to ensure no hackers can infiltrate the firewall and no viruses can propagate across the network.
One way to do this, as mentioned before, is to have a power contingency in place. What happens if a bad thunderstorm comes through and the power goes out for a few hours? Many businesses have what is known as an uninterruptible power supply or UPS. While it sounds very fancy, it is simply a battery bank that takes over powering the important network infrastructure such as servers and data switches. These can typically power systems for several hours. This can businesses come up with other contingencies until the power comes back on. Once the power does return, the battery backup is switched off and recharged.
Recovery
While recovery can sometimes feel like it takes forever to accomplish, having a DRP in place, can greatly decrease the time it takes to get your business operational again. With server backup services Toronto, Pathway Communications can greatly improve recovery time. With our state-of-the-art data center, we can easily switch your server to another one if it becomes corrupted or crashes. We are also tops among offsite backup providers in Toronto able to restore corrupted datasets quickly and efficiently. It is important for all businesses to have a disaster recovery plan in place. If a disaster happens to hit, then you and your business are prepared for it. Reach out to Pathway Communications today and find out how we can help. We are your partner for a successful tomorrow.
