Disaster Preparedness
Get Ready Now: A Guide for Disaster Planning
Every organization can experience a serious incident that disrupts normal operations. The potential causes are many and varied: from an act of nature to the unintentional act of a staff member - the list is endless. No plan can prevent these events from occurring, but you can mitigate the consequences by taking the proper actions now.
Your application can stop running due to:
Hardware failure
Software failure
Natural disaster
Loss of power
Loss of data connectivity
Loss of access to your facility
Personnel not available or unable to reach your facility
| Gartner Group: 80% of loss-of-service or loss-of-data incidents are the result of unintendended actions by employees. |
What you can do now, before disaster strikes:
If you don't have a disaster recovery plan now, create one. Here are some starting points:
1. Start off by playing the 'what if' game and access your true exposure to risk.
2. Write out which tasks your department performs and who performs them. This includes computer system information and peripherals.
3. Create a team and customer communication plan to clearly allocate duties and expectations.
4. Involve other departments in the creation of your plan. Make sure everyone understands it.
5. Need support? Put numbers to your down time, show the actual loss in revenue.
6. Consider creating a separate plan for each type of emergency to prevent implementing a complete disaster recovery.
If you already have a plan, is it current?
Are you testing your plan at least once a year?
Create a template for practicing your plan to ensure you review, practice and implement effectively.
Is your hardware under warranty or a support plan?
Are your data and software applications backed up, so that you can restore them?
Consider your facility, power, environmental, computing hardware, software, communications, personnel, and access/transportation.
Benefits of Outsourcing to a Data Center
-Allows you to focus on your core competencies.
-Get the expertise you need, only when you need it.
-Data is safely backed up at an off site, secure facility.
-Business continuity: get the help you need to get your operation back up and running quickly, should disaster strike.
-24 x 7 x 365 power and connectivity within a hardened facility.
-Around-the-clock monitoring and management of your data and application.
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