As a business owner or manager, it’s your responsibility to ensure that you can maintain operations should a disaster strike. We have all seen too many disasters of various kinds in the past few years to think the likelihood of being impacted ourselves is remote. This checklist is intended to get you started down the road of putting a documented plan in place.
What Disaster Scenarios Could You Be Faced With?
- Server hardware or software failure (corruption, failure, cyberattack)
- Staff unable to attend office (area evacuation, medical quarantine, natural disaster)
- Office computers are destroyed or inaccessible (fire, natural disaster, theft, cyberattack)
What is the Cost of Downtime to Your Organization?
Downtime could mean the inability to:
- access some or all corporate data and applications
- communicate with staff, clients, suppliers and business partners via email and/or telephone
- process orders
Costs could include:
- Financial – What is the cost to your business for every hour your IT systems are down?
- Legal – What legal liabilities could you be exposed to?
- Reputation Damage – What might the consequences be to your future business prospects of an inability to fulfill orders or provide services in a timely fashion? What about lost confidence to keep your customer, vendor and employee data secure?
What is Your Tolerance Level for IT System Downtime?
Your tolerance level will help determine the data backup and network security solutions that are needed to meet your maximum downtime objective while also keeping your budget in mind.
> 1 hour, 4 hours, 1 day?
What About Your Current Data Backup System?
Is there an on-site copy of your data?
Is there an off-site copy of your data?
How often is data being backed up?
How long does it take to recover from your current backup solution?
How often is your backup solution tested?
Have You Documented Your Network Layout and Location of All Corporate Data?
This information must be accessible in the event of a failure or disaster, such as in cloud storage or an off-site hard copy. Those charged with restoring your systems and/or data must have a clear understanding of these details.
A Disaster Has Occurred. Now What?
To download our free IT Systems Disaster Recovery Checklist, visit our web site HERE.
Need help with your organization’s disaster recovery planning and data backup solutions? Reach out to us today to get started. We’ll help you get a plan in place to get you back in operation quickly in the event of a disaster.
