Disaster Recovery: Are You Ready For A Catastrophe?

You know all the clichés . If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The prudent man forseeth the evil and hideth himself. And so on. Even though those principles of preventative maintenance are repeated ad nauseam, there are business owners and managers who still don’t have an effective disaster recovery plan in place. When they finally realize that they need one, it will be too late.

What can happen with a catastrophe? It’s not only going to cause a stoppage in business operations, it can also cause data loss. That means that dozens, hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of orders, customer information records, and employee information records could be lost. That can happen if you don’t plan for a disaster. And that loss could be more costly than the loss caused by the actual disaster itself. In fact, businesses are known to shut down after suffering a major data loss. It’s that fatal.

That’s why it’s important that your business has a disaster recovery plan in place in the event that a major strike from Mother Nature, or some other unforeseen circumstance, ruins your IT infrastructure. Think of it as part of your risk management strategy. It’s that same principle that has led you to purchase general commercial liability insurance for your business. You’re basically making a small investment to avoid the possibility of going bankrupt at a later date. You’re buying peace of mind, and it’s worth every penny that you spend on it.

However, it’s not just a natural catastrophe that can create an IT disaster. It can be caused by human error as well. If someone who works for your organization accidentally deletes every record in your production database, what are you going to do? If you have a disaster recovery plan in place, you’ll be ready. This also points to another aspect of disaster recovery that is often overlooked: proper employee training. Ensure that people on your team know how to avoid creating a disaster. Add necessary safeguards to decrease the likelihood of human errors causing a problem. These are all proactive stops that should be part of your company culture.

If you’d like to learn more about a sound disaster recovery plan, feel free to contact us. We’d love to help.