Disaster recovery plans – why you need one and what to consider

If lockdown has taught businesses anything, it’s that it’s vital to have plans in place to ensure continuity, should an unforeseen event occur.

Threats and challenges to your business can come in many forms, such as power cuts, weather damage, burglaries, cyber-attacks and not to mention, global pandemics! Although all incomparable, these events share a common outcome; to potentially disrupt your business and have very real, negative effects on productivity and profitability.

The losses your business could incur from any of the above can potentially be so damaging, that you may not be able to recover, due to the effects on both infrastructure and data. With a disaster recovery plan in place, you can make sure the impact on your business, should you experience a disruptive event, is minimal, and you can therefore carry on operating as normal.

Our tech experts have taken a closer look at disaster recovery and have compiled a list of the key points you should definitely consider, when putting an effective plan in place.

What do I need to consider when putting a disaster recovery plan in place?

Audit your Business

Take a close look at your business infrastructure and all of its existing functionality, as well as what is currently in place to achieve these processes. Performing a detailed inventory of your assets will allow you to see what’s working well and what needs improvement, in order to ensure your business is as safe and protected as it possibly can be.

Consider your worst case scenario

If your systems were to fail, how long could your business survive before you begin to experience very real, detrimental effects? Determining this will give you a good idea of how quickly you will need before systems are restored and you’re able to function normally again, following an actual disaster.

Devise an action plan

Should you experience downtime, a detailed disaster recovery plan will ensure you know exactly what to do and how to do it, to get everything restored quickly and efficiently. It may even be beneficial to have multiple plans in place, for a variety of possible scenarios and outages. For example, should you experience a cyber-attack that infiltrates your company network and crashes it, a hosted system, whereby all of your data is stored and backed up in a secure data centre and managed by your provider, will mean you’re able to get things back up and running very quickly with next to no downtime. Should the primary system fail, the secondary system will seamlessly ‘kick in’ to ensure your business doesn’t lose all of it’s data, with minimal interruption.

Who does what?

Different types of disasters call for different types of disaster management. Make sure everyone is aware of the roles they play and who is responsible for critical communications in challenging times. Ask yourselves – do you have qualified first aiders? Do you have a fire marshal on site? Is your building safe and secure? Are the communications solutions you have in place prepared and able to deal with possible threats, either deliberate or otherwise, to ensure your business is online and available regardless of the threat? Making sure you have all of these bases covered will result in a thorough and comprehensive disaster recovery plan, that has all angles considered.

If you would like some further information on how we can help your business to put an effective disaster recovery plan in place, please contact a member of our team today on enquiries.uk@enreach.com or 0333 3603 723