Having a great disaster recovery plan is vital for every organization. Disasters can come out of nowhere, debilitating your IT department and disrupting your operations. Your organization needs to be prepared with a thorough strategy to resume operations as quickly as possible.
Disaster Recovery
A disaster is anything that jeopardizes your IT operations. Whether that is due to hackers, data loss, or a natural disaster, any significant disruption to your operations is dangerous. You need to prepare for all likely scenarios that could affect your business and its productivity.
Preparation is key to successful disaster recovery. If your team does not know what to do, they will spend more time panicking than resolving the issue.
Too much time between the actual disaster and recovery can cause significant harm to your regular operations. It can have a lasting impact that reduces your IT infrastructure’s efficiency and effectiveness.
The Importance of Preparing for Disasters
Anytime that your operations are down, you are losing money. Disasters can be devastating for businesses, significantly impacting them to the point that they cannot recover.
Depending on the type of disaster, it can take hours or days to recover your IT operations. The time that is spent on recovery, or the downtime, is costing you money.
Instead of generating revenue, your organization’s time and resources are put towards paying idle workers, making physical and virtual repairs, recovering data, replacing damaged equipment, and rebuilding your business reputation. Having a great disaster recovery plan can help you begin profiting again as soon as possible after a disaster.
Creating a Disaster Recovery Plan
When creating your disaster recovery strategy, the first step is to develop your plan’s foundation. You need to know what disasters you are most likely to encounter and how exactly they will affect your business.
From there, you can make individual recovery plans for each type of disaster, as they may require specific contingencies and considerations. However, you should also have an overall strategy for general recovery that each plan follows and that your team can use if an unexpected disaster occurs.
Your disaster recovery should implement protocols and systems that ensure your business sees a rapid recovery. The goal is to get your IT operations back to normal as soon as possible.
Important Parts of Your Plan
There are some aspects of your strategy that you need to consider. You should use each of these to support a quick and effective recovery.
The Recovery Point Objective is a threshold setting. It sets that maximum allowable age for recent data backups, minimizing data loss in case of disaster. Your system has to maintain consistent and frequent backups.
The Recovery Time Objective is another threshold setting, though this one refers to the maximum allowable time for recovery. This ensures that your operations have to be up and running again within a set amount of time, reducing downtime and encouraging efficient recovery.
The technologies utilized in your disaster recovery strategy should support your recovery objectives. You can use various tools and protocols to encourage quicker recovery and minimize a disaster’s negative impact.
Any protocol you do include should specify who will administer the protocol and recovery, along with step-by-step instructions to do so. Your protocol should be specific and straightforward to get your team on the right track to fast recovery.
Once you have developed your disaster recovery strategy, you need to test it frequently. Continual testing ensures that your recovery plan can withstand the pressures of a real disaster and that it can successfully recover your IT operations.
Working with a Managed Service Provider
Part of your disaster recovery plan may include working with a managed service provider. As is the case for many aspects of IT operations, disaster recovery can be complex, and it may be easier and cheaper for you to work with an MSP.
Your goal with disaster recovery is to ensure your operations are down for as little time as possible. To do so, you may need to partner with an MSP that can provide the resources and expertise required to create a successful disaster recovery strategy.
However, you should ensure that you are choosing the right MSP for your organization. Each provider has its advantages and disadvantages that should be considered before committing to working with them. Remember, your business is at stake, as unsuccessful disaster recovery could jeopardize your entire organization.
Some MSPs offer specialized services for specific industries or types of businesses. If your organization requires specialized assistance, it would be better to look for an MSP that can provide it.
Your service provider should act as a partner to your organization. Their goal should be to support your success. Your MSP needs to be as committed to your business as you are and should provide you with the resources needed to achieve your goals.
To ensure you choose the right provider, you can check reviews, referrals, and performance records. You should also ask about their experience, clients, and specific knowledge regarding disaster recovery. This information can give you insight into whether the MSP will work with you as a partner or treat you as yet another customer patronizing their business.
With the right managed service provider, you can ensure that your disaster recovery is quick and easy. Your MSP can ensure that your IT operations experience as little downtime as possible and run smoothly soon after the disaster.
The Benefits of MSPs
There are many benefits to working with an MSP rather than managing disaster recovery in-house. Disaster recovery comes with a long list of tasks, including risk assessment, business impact analysis, solution research, implementation, maintenance, and testing.
The biggest benefit of working with an MSP is gaining access to a pool of qualified experts and quality resources. Providers already have an experienced team of IT professionals prepared to help you, and they can also provide you with access to powerful technology and software.
All of this means that an MSP can provide you with faster recovery and quick response times. When you experience a disaster, your provider will be there, ready to help your organization get back on its feet.
They have the resources and expertise to develop a comprehensive recovery strategy for any scenario. With their experience, they will also simplify the process, expediting your recovery, and supporting a return to normal operations.
Additionally, it often makes more financial sense to outsource disaster recovery rather than hire an in-house team. To build a disaster recovery team in your organization, you have to find, hire, train, and manage qualified IT professionals, which your MSP has already done.
Final Thoughts
Having a strong disaster recovery plan is essential to resuming normal IT operations after a disaster. If you do not have a great plan, you can lose significant amounts of money and impact your future operations.
If your plan requires you to work with a managed service provider, be sure you choose the right one. An excellent MSP can help you avoid the lasting negative impacts of disasters with a powerful recovery strategy.
For help building, improving, and managing your IT systems, contact AlleoTech today. We can assist you in creating a successful disaster recovery strategy.