As a small or medium-sized business owner, you know how important it is to have a disaster recovery plan to protect your company's data and minimize downtime during a catastrophe. Disaster recovery solutions provide a safety net by allowing businesses to recover from disruptions and quickly minimize the impact on operations. They also help protect against reputational damage and financial losses resulting from extended downtime or data breaches.
The reality is that disasters can happen at any time, and having a plan in place is critical for the survival of your business. However, selecting a disaster recovery site can be overwhelming, given the numerous options available, each with its own benefits and drawbacks. In this blog post, we'll dive deep into the three types of disaster recovery sites you can consider for your SMB and provide you with all the information you need to make an informed decision based on your specific needs and budget.
If your employees or customers lose access to business-critical applications and data, there will be a direct impact on productivity and revenue. Let’s say your business has 100 employees, the average hourly revenue is $1,500, and the backup data set amounts to 2 TB. Given these parameters, a full restore from a local backup would take over 8 hours. The associated downtime cost would amount to $34,000 in lost revenue. Modern BCDR products offer the ability to run applications from backup instances of virtual servers. This allows users to continue operations while primary application servers are restored.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a business today that doesn’t conduct some form of data backup. But what happens if your primary servers are irrevocably damaged? That's why it's essential to send copies of business data offsite. Modern BCDR products can run applications from backup instances of virtual servers, and some can extend this capability to the cloud. This approach is frequently called cloud DR or disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS). The ability to run applications in the cloud while onsite infrastructure is restored is widely considered a game-changer for disaster recovery. Backup and business continuity are different - your business needs both.
Most IT downtime results from common, everyday actions like accidental (or intentional) data deletion, damage to computer hardware, and poor security habits. For example, a recent OWI Labs survey found that 81% of respondents occasionally or regularly log into public wifi, despite security risks. A ransomware attack or virus can halt operations as easily as a natural disaster. These are typically the result of human error but are preventable with BCDR planning and ongoing employee training.
Ensuring access to applications and data following a disaster is just one piece of a successful BCDR strategy. Thorough BCDR planning should assess your business as a whole, and many planning efforts begin with an impact analysis or risk assessment. These studies can reveal weaknesses in your business's ability to continue operations. BCDR is a company-wide responsibility; failure to protect your business from human error and system failures can be detrimental.
Fortunately, by working with a skilled Managed Services Provider (MSP), you can avoid the fallout of poor BCDR planning. If you're looking for more information about BCDR strategies or are interested in a risk assessment, our experienced, dedicated, US-based team of experts is here to help. Contact us today.