The Importance of Having a Recovery Plan in Managed IT Services
Let’s start with the obvious questions: What exactly is a recovery plan in the context of managed IT? And why is having one so important?
Disaster recovery defined
Disaster recovery (DR) is an important part of ongoing business stability, focused on ensuring that the IT systems that are in place to support business growth and day-to-day functionality remain operational even in the wake of a catastrophic event.
The first factor in the disaster recovery process is always the cloud. Having a cloud setup eliminates the need for a separate server or data recovery site. These secondary sites serve as physical data centers that can be great backups, but are majorly expensive to build, maintain, and manage. With cloud computing, sites like these are far less commonplace than they used to be.
What exactly is a disaster?
Disasters that can interrupt the flow of business happen everyday, and without warning. From network outages to weather events like hurricanes and earthquakes that disrupt operations, anything that takes you offline is something that you should have a plan to protect yourself against.
A few examples are:
- Natural disasters (earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, wildfires, etc.)
- Cyber attacks (malware, ransomware attacks)
- Technological hazards (power outages, pipeline failures, etc.)
Why are recovery plans so important?
Business and technology are now undeniably linked. Online applications allow companies to be more agile, connect to their customers, and drive growth. But, with the adapting marketplace and widespread migration to a remote work environment, the infrastructure supporting these businesses and their safety online gets more complicated.
System disruptions are much more costly to a business that rely heavily, if not entirely, on things like cloud-based services and online data storage and protection. Not to mention, most organizations are now required by law to have a DR plan in place, meaning you could be hit with compliance violations if you opt not to.
No matter the industry or size of you business, the bottom line is that you need to have a plan in place to help you quickly recover from anything that can bring your day-to-day operations to a halt.
How DR works
There are three main elements to any successful DR plan:
- Preventative
Preventative measures can include things like backing up important data and actively monitoring your servers for compliance issues or computing errors.
- Detective
Detective measures do what they sound like: detect concerning events as they are happening in real time.
- Corrective
Corrective measures plan ahead for DR efforts that might be needed in the future as well as putting recovery procedures to work in the event that some sort of disruption does happen.
Effective types of DR
Some of the most common technologies involved in a DR effort are:
- Backups
Backups consist of backing up all critical data to a secondary, off-site system. While these are important, since they do not necessarily include any IT infrastructure, they can’t fully make up a DR plan on their own.
- Disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS)
You’ve heard of software as a service (SaaS), and DRaaS is pretty similar. These service models allow you to back up your data using a third-party provider as your cloud host for this invaluable data.
- Virtual DR
Similar to DRaaS, virtual DR allows you to house your backed up operations, data, and even entire IT infrastructure on an offsite virtual machine (VM). The time it takes to get back online after a disaster is pretty minimal here, but does require frequent data transfers to remain effective and not get bogged down.
It’s time to take the next step when it comes to protecting your business from data loss, regulatory risks and unhappy customers.
Learn more about Access One business continuity and disaster recovery strategies and how they can be used to help build the DR solution your company needs.
