Scenarios Every Business Continuity Plan Should Cover

What would you do if your business were suddenly struck by something which threatened its very existence? Do you have a plan to make sure that your business survives well past the expiration date assigned by natural disasters, hardware failure, user error, or hacking attacks? One of the most important parts of running a business is managing risk, and implementing a business continuity plan is a great way to focus on the preservation of your organization.

How to Handle Emergencies
Something that business continuity professionals might forget about in terms of preservation is the safety of its workers. You may have heard of OSHA, or the Occupational Health and Safety Administration. You can begin to prepare for hazardous situations by posting materials provided by OSHA in a visible location within your office. Furthermore, you should practice escape maneuvers whenever the opportunity presents itself. Hold a company meeting and be sure to talk about emergency procedures with the whole staff.

Keep the Worst in Mind
The best way to know if your business can handle a disaster is to ask yourself what you would do if your physical office were (hypothetically) destroyed. How would you recover your data if it were reduced to a smoldering pile of ashes, or if your server sinks to the bottom of a river? You need to account for all possible events; not just the ones that are most likely to happen.

Beyond physical damage, you need to consider the ramifications of data loss. There’s a very real possibility that your organization could go out of business by no longer having access to the data it needs. Most businesses that cannot effectively restore their data will go out of business within a year. Therefore, it’s imperative that you have preventative solutions in place.

Take this example: off-site backup is crucial if you hope to keep your data secure in the event of a disaster. The reason is--the more locations that your data is stored at, the lower the chance that all copies of it will be destroyed. The ideal solution is to store your data backups in the cloud. This way, you can deploy your data from anywhere in a moment’s notice, even if your in-house infrastructure is completely destroyed. As long as you have a device to restore the data to, you can get back in business with minimal data loss and downtime.

Keeping Your Backups Maintained
Once you know what type of backup and restoration you’re going with, it’s time to make sure that your system is being properly maintained. This involves keeping a close watch on your backups through monitoring, as well as maintaining your backup solutions to ensure that they are taking effective snapshots that will help your business in a pinch. Running drills will help to ensure that you know how to handle situations that require immediate attention.

Of course, keeping watch for potential improvements is another great way to help your backup solution be as beneficial as possible. Your backup solution shouldn’t just be able to take adequate backups--what you need is a powerful solution like a Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) solution. BDR can automatically take backups as often as every fifteen minutes, and restore your data directly to the BDR device in a pinch, effectively eliminating downtime and ensuring that your business' longevity.

Does your business need reliable, efficient data backup solutions? To learn more, reach out to us at 708-781-7110.