Hurricanes and other calamaties, have impacted all types of businesses: retail, hotels, corporations.
Those that had a contingency PLAN, recovered much faster than those that did not.
Disasters impact loss of data and communications infrastructure resulting in improper or non-functional businesses.
Regular backup at specified schedules, either file-based or continuous, with at least one COPY off-site, ensures that a business can bring up applications and data, when DISASTER strikes.
This preparedness should involve people being trained in the processes and plans that constitute disaster recovery.
Some ideas to consider:
- Identify the data and systems that are critical for the Business' continuity - integrate data and applications backup into recovery solutions that can be remotely accessed.
- Identify and rectify failures in the network, business process, and people
--- redundancy helps eliminate single points of failure. Identify redundant switches, routers, etc.
--- review business processes and individual responsibilities - plan for 'failover' plans.
