Most people today agree that business data and applications (email, financials, supply chain, etc.) are key components of their business operations. Many will state unequivocally that their businesses simply could not operate without them. Yet, people address this dependency with varying levels of commitment to protecting it. Some people operate under the assumption that nothing bad will ever happen to their data and applications - those people are often surprised in the worst way at the worst time. Others recognize that something bad might happen, but they figure that they can create a work-around (using paper files and manual processes) if that ever occurs – those people often underestimate what they can cobble together in a crisis. Some people do understand the full extent to which a loss of business data can affect their company and recognize that some companies will never recover from such a loss, but not nearly as many people put serious thought into this issue as should.

So, what could possibly happen to your business data and applications?

• A disgruntled employee deletes data from your server.
• A virus corrupts your data.
• A hard disk crash occurs in your file server or mail server.
• A fire breaks out within your datacenter or server room.
• A loss of power occurs due to storm damage.

Any and all of these will interrupt communications within your business as well as between your business and your clients. In fact, there are myriad reasons why you need to develop a plan to first back up your data and, second, have an alternative plan to run your business if your primary datacenter is down for an extended period of time.

Business Continuity

Disaster recovery is actually part of the larger topic of Business Continuity that also includes planning for personnel, facilities and communications in case of disaster. For this discussion, we are focusing specifically on IT infrastructure and planning for the eventuality of a disaster that affects your data and applications.

Time is Money

In order to adequately assess your options, you need to answer some tough questions:

1. How much data can you afford to lose in the event of a failure?

1. Could you survive without the archive of your emails from the last 12 months?
2. How would losing the Excel, Word and data files you’ve created in the last 30 days affect your business?

2. How long can you be without your data, business applications and email?

1. How would you run your business without email for a day? What about a week?
2. Could you get by without access to your financials for a few days?

Possible Courses of Action

Each of the following are possible courses of action -  progressing down the list increases the security and reliability of the course of action to turn it into a solution for your business:

1. Do nothing and accept the inherent risks of data loss and downtime.
2. Back up your data to portable media and store it off-site.
3. Back up your data off-site to a third-party online service.
4. Back up your data to another company location.

Certainly, solutions for disaster recovery will vary depending on the size of your company and often on your budget. Larger companies have more data, but they also usually have more money to implement complete solutions to ensure their continuity of service.

Assessment and Planning

The first step towards understanding an appropriate solution for your business is to conduct an assessment of your internal systems and your risk tolerance. MUSA Technology Partners can assist with this evaluation and provide recommendations for solutions that are relevant to your feature and budget requirements.

For a more technical discussion of how a large company can leverage its Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS), check out the article by Doug Lantigua on Networking for Disaster Recovery and Business Continuance. This article also discusses the Run Book, Recovery Point Objectives and Recovery Time Objectives.

Contact MUSA Technology Partners for more information or help with conducting a Disaster Recovery and Business Continuance plan.