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Without an effective disaster recovery strategy, businesses are leaving themselves vulnerable with potentially catastrophic consequences. According to a study, 60% of SMEs that lose their data shut down within six months of the disaster[1]. However, many firms are struggling to implement an effective backup and recovery strategy. In fact, our recent survey revealed that 30% of organisations still experience data loss, demonstrating that they need to do more to ensure they successfully implement and leverage backup and disaster recovery solutions and best practices. One of the most common ways businesses fall short is by relying on multiple backup solutions to secure their IT environments. Frequently, this means a variety of tools to understand, manage and verify, which tends to lead to increased operational complexity and risk as things are more likely to get missed.
We’re of the view that nothing is more critical than your data. While the industry was once satisfied with simple file or folder backups giving us the ability to recover deleted files, today there is an increasing demand for robust backup recovery systems. These robust backup systems are vital to ensure business continuity and security, with a direct correlation between deploying an optimal backup and disaster recovery solution and maximising uptime. With businesses recognising the importance of disaster recovery, we’re seeing greater adoption of more robust backup software which covers the full spectrum of processes needed for business continuity and disaster recovery.
For businesses with a directory server, a file server or an application server that is running some line of business software, losing that application could result in your business grinding to a halt for some time. The implication of this can be far-reaching and have a detrimental effect on customer retention. For end users, an IT disaster is unacceptable. They are paying for a service and expect that to be delivered regardless of circumstances, as such, a significant outage in service or loss of data could cause them to switch suppliers. It is therefore far less expensive for businesses to prevent or ensure they are able to recover quickly from a disaster than lose customers as the result of one.
It is vital for organisations to implement disaster recovery software solutions that do not just recover files but also help secure the business’ very future. Organisations must implement one software solution across all areas of disaster recovery to minimise both the time and knowledge needed to perform backups and any subsequent recoveries. Arguably, the best disaster recovery solutions should be fool-proof, intuitive and easily implemented even by somebody who doesn’t have prior knowledge of how to do so.
When it comes to finding and implementing a software solution, businesses must identify the risks to their business and then determine the resource they can allocate to performing backups. For example, whether they will take control of the backup process in-house or outsource. It is vital that backups are performed regularly. Fortunately, many solutions perform automated backups on a daily or weekly basis as determined by the user which allow businesses to rest assured that the means of disaster recovery are regularly being taken care of. These solutions also have the added advantage of giving organisations a better overview of all the systems within their IT infrastructure and how long it would take them to get back up and running following an outage.
The development of more robust solutions is not only beneficial to those using them but also presents Managed Service Providers with new possibilities. Within the MSP market, we see a lot of excitement about this sort of software as disaster recovery presents the next growth opportunity and allows them to give businesses a wider range of options to best suit their needs. Organisations with systems running on a range of different platforms will also find that many MSPs are now able to offer one solution to span the full spectrum of their systems. This removes the need to have multiple solutions, allowing the business to learn how to use one solution effectively for the entire organisation. This has the potential to cut costs, increase ease of use and also increase ease of mind as they know they are relying on one robust system, rather than several solutions of differing capabilities.
Failure to implement an effective disaster recovery strategy could have catastrophic consequences, resulting in financial and customer losses, and, in the worst-case scenario, could cause businesses to collapse. If businesses fail to prepare for disaster recovery, they are effectively preparing to fail. As firms continue to deal with increasingly large volumes of data it is critical to implement a robust disaster recovery strategy in which they arm themselves with the right solutions to be able to respond quickly and effectively to any data losses or downtime and minimise the impact on their operations.
