Organizations and businesses today function off the ability to share data, communicate, and manage daily operations electronically. We use email, electronic databases, online financials, digital filesharing, and a plethora of other functions, software, and programs that allow us to run our businesses. But what happens when our internet fails us? What do we do when a user accidentally downloads ransomware? Or, in some of the worst-case scenarios, what is the plan for when the business is hit by a major disaster like a fire?
No one can ever predict when disaster will strike but being prepared for when the worst occurs is the first step to keeping long term damage and asset loss from happening to you and your company. A Disaster Recovery Plan, or a DRP, is a documented and regimented policy and procedure to help you and your team get back to full functionality as fast as possible after an unexpected disaster.
A Disaster Recovery Plan is a key part of Business Continuity and is vital in keeping your business operating after a disaster, whether it’s man-made or a natural disaster. When thinking about your Disaster Recovery Plan, there are three key things to think about: RTO, RPO, and backups.
RPO
RPO stands for Recovery Point Objective and denotes the amount of time between a potential outage and the last accessible copy of data you are looking for.
Example: If you need to find an email that was accidentally deleted. An RPO policy might have a backup of your desired email from 1 hour ago.
When building a Disaster Recovery Plan, you need to think about how recent your want your recoverable data to be.
RTO
RTO stands for Recovery Time Objective and denotes the minimum amount of time that business processes must be restored after a disaster in order for work to proceed without major consequences.
Example: If your internet and phone systems go out, RTO would make a policy to have it back up and running within 4 hours of the outage.
A Disaster Recovery Plan should consider the minimum amount of time to get the primary functions and data back in order for the business to continue operating.
Backups
Backups are a key part of staying compliant to your RPO and RTO policies. When you lose function and data because of an outage or disaster, your backups are what will get your data back and help you move forward. When considering your DRP, it is imperative that you consider how often you want your data backed up, where you want to store it, and how long your organization can sustain an outage before major consequences occur.
As a reputable MSP, Digital323 understands the needs of organizations and industry best practices of keeping you and your IT functional, stable and secure during a potential disaster. A solid IT disaster recovery plan will protect your business and get you back up and running with minimal – if any – hassle and downtime. Contact us today to get started and learn more about how a Disaster Recovery Plan can save your business.
