Why Having a Disaster Recovery Strategy is Important

In the event of a disaster, a disaster recovery will make sure that all your data can be recovered. You can create a disaster recovery plan yourself and arrange your own data storage, however using a third-party IT support partner is a better idea as they can store your data offsite or in the cloud, make regular back-ups and help restore information to your servers while you can concentrate on running and growing your business.

What is a Disaster Recovery Strategy?

This is a document that maps out how your business will deal if a disaster happens, as well as including step by step instructions of what needs to be done to recover your data. You need to include information on how information will be restored and what your employees need to do to keep your businesses going. If you choose to include an IT partner, then you need to outline what they need to do to help and how you will communicate with them.

This strategy needs to be available and accessible to everyone you work with and your IT partner, so everyone knows their roles and responsibilities. Always make sure you print out the strategy, so you have a hard copy in case of a power cut or server failure!

How to Create a Disaster Recovery Strategy

You need to know where your data is kept and how often it is backed up, some companies back up their data every day or some do it every week. Make sure you include contact numbers and an agreed communication plan with your IT partner and your employees.

You also need to include a recovery time objective (RTO) , this is how much time is allowed to get the business up and running again after a disaster. You also need a recovery point objective (RPO), this will cover a window of time where data might be lost during the event of a disaster and can be measured in hours or minutes. The back-ups will need to restore everything that could be lost in that time frame.

Why a Strategy is Vital for your Business

You need a disaster recovery strategy in place to protect your customers data and your businesses data, and to keep in order with government legislation, especially now that GDPR is in place.

If you don’t have a strategy in place then you’re risking heavy fines which can affect your cash flow.