Is your IT Disaster Recovery policy good enough?
“Prevention is better than cure”
For those companies with an active Disaster Recovery plan, the implication of restoring your system state is at most a few hours downtime. For companies without any provision for Disaster Recovery, or verification that their policy actually succeeds in recovering data, the implications can be fatal to the continuity of the business.
It is at these times that you truly appreciate the impact of IT, or lack of it, on operations, and how reliant you are on your IT infrastructure (hardware , software and systems) being available, stable and secure. A server can be replaced, network settings can be applied again, but without any verified backups, business documents and data, once lost are gone, forever.
The IDC, DTI, Gartner and other organisations cite various statistics to quantify the risk of business failure in event of catastrophic system failure or data loss, but irrespective of the risk and degree of disruption to a business’ ongoing success, ask yourself the question – What would the impact of systems failure and permanent data loss be to our organisation and to what extent would we want to avoid that risk?
Aside from day to day business continuity and productivity issues, additional consequences of data loss to your business can stem from industry regulatory compliance, impacted customer confidence, non-conformance or supplier penalties, intellectual property etc.
The focus of this article is on evaluating the steps you may have taken to safeguard your systems (especially data), and what you definitely need to consider in order to sleep soundly at night, safe in the knowledge you are prepared for whatever may happen. Disaster Recovery encompasses more than just performing verified backups; hardware redundancy, backup power, Acceptable Use policy, physical, network and internet security along with general best practise computing are just some of the elements comprising an effective Disaster Recovery strategy.
As touched on above, the many parts that make up your IT infrastructure are all prone to developing errors. Failure of any one part will most certainly cause a knock on effect. Backing up computer operating system drives, system state, software installations and data will enable you to recover more quickly in the event of those systems failing. Backing up data will enable your business to continue trading, after interruptions, servicing your clients, checking stock levels, processing orders or reconciling accounts. Protecting data is key to Disaster Recovery.
So what do you need to do to implement a Disaster Recovery plan;
1. Think about the hardware, software and data stores you use to conduct business. Prioritise those that are most important and that would cause the most disruption to your business, for instance your accounts package on your server.
2. Identify and categorise the silos of information that your staff accumulate. Where is data kept (local computer hard drive, flash drive or network shared folder), how often is it updated, when is it backed up and if so, how, by who and how often?
3. Evaluate the potential impact to your business of failure of those different systems or loss of different categories of data. Derive a bottom line cost to your business. Add the cost required to try and get your data back, reconfigure new systems and adjust for how urgently you would need this done based on how long you can afford to be without the different categories of software or data.
4. Once you have this information, you will be in a position to determine the best way to protect those systems. Devise a plan to tackle IT meltdown.
5. Record details of those involved in any Disaster Recovery tasks. Keep a file which documents the plan of action, including who, how and when. Define timescales for recovery and think about contingency for failure of any of the recovery steps. Document your systems, their settings, service packs and software media location. Speak to your IT suppliers, involve them in the process and seek their assurances on your timescales. What happens if the main IT contact is on holiday?
6. Establish the resources required to fulfil your recovery steps weighing up the cost to implement with the cost of the risk. Seek professional advice to make sure you don’t miss anything. Ensure your backups are performing correctly, set up reporting of daily backups so you can be notified when something is wrong. Rotate your media and define the policy and security for taking data offsite.
7. Review your strategy on an annual basis to account for changes in your requirements or systems you are protecting.
8. Where risk has been identified, take steps to prevent needing to implement your disaster recovery plan (never locate your server room beneath a toilet!). Do something about the risk while you have time.
Data and systems recovery software solutions
There are many solutions available in the market to protect your systems and data, varying in functionality, complexity and price. From basic entry level solutions to enterprise level functionality systems offering seamless integration and ease of backup and restore across numerous systems. At a minimum, if you could survive with a day or two down time required to rebuild a server and its settings, then performing daily backups of your data folders with Windows’ native backup utility, and storing data offsite for added protection would suffice in protecting your data.
For more mission critical protection, or more rapid recovery you may consider the types of solutions offered by Symantec or Computer Associates. These technologies enable seamless backup management of operating systems, data and databases, backed up accordingly to custom set schedules, ensuring continuous protection of your data. In the event of disaster, the last backup of a server or client computer can be quickly restored to a spare machine or even hosted in a virtual environment until you have sourced replacement hardware. This minimises downtime and restores functionality of your resources with minimal disruption to your business.
Many comprehensive solutions are designed for bare metal restores (ie. restoring a backup to a different computer, with different hardware and device drivers), enabling a servers operating system, settings and data to be restored in a matter of under an hour (depending of course on the amount of data to restore). A wide range of backup media types are supported and automated copying of backups to network attached storage devices (NAS), tape media, external hard drives, FTP sites or optical devices is possible. It is imperative to keep verified backups offsite to account for fire or water damage, these can be performed over an internet connection to remote data centres.
Our recommended solution, for complete end to end systems protection is the Symantec Backup Exec suite of products. Once configured, Backup Excel will protect your computer operating system, data, email and databases. Advanced options exist for a wide range of technology specific agents and pricing flexibility exists to cater for most budgets.
If you require further information on Disaster Recovery or the range of services we provide to assist you with your Disaster Recovery strategy, please get in touch with your account manager.