Data Recovery

The amount of digital data that small and medium-sized businesses must process and store continues to increase exponentially, and the need for proper backup and recovery procedures is more pronounced than ever. In order to avoid expensive downtime and ruinous data loss in the event of an emergency, take some time to review your data backup procedures and ensure that they aren’t a weak link in your company.

Have a formalized, written plan in place

It isn’t enough to talk about data backup best practices in a meeting and assume that everyone will follow the guidelines from then on. It’s imperative that you have codified procedures in place to deal with your company’s specific data security needs, as holding your team accountable for implementing best practices leads to safer data. Make sure the individuals responsible for backup procedures keep detailed logs which are routinely checked by others.

Prioritize your vulnerable data accordingly

The first step in any disaster recovery backup plan should be understanding of exactly what types of data you are going to be storing in your backups and prioritizing them. It’s crucial to have a detailed knowledge of the various categories of sensitive data that your organization collects, what is being done to keep it secure, and which employees have access to view and modify the data.

Stick to your schedules

Some business leaders may be tempted to think that data backup schedules are arbitrary, and that postponing a planned backup for a mission critical business need serves the greater good of the company. In fact, the data security effort is integral to the future of the organization, and backup schedules should be treated as non-negotiable duties.

Test your backups regularly

Once you’ve decided on a routine schedule for your data backups, it’s important to remember that they are only as good as your testing apparatus. You need to know both that the correct information is being saved during your backup procedures, and that you will be able to successfully execute a recovery when necessary. Backup data stored on servers must be examined frequently to ensure its efficacy and help you prepare for the worst.

Craft procedures for physical media

Although it is becoming less common, many businesses still have to receive or transmit sensitive customer data via physical media. Once this information has been digitally backed up and stored you must have protocols in place for dealing with the physical copies, whether by destruction or proper storage.

Store your backup data at a secondary location

It’s generally wise to store your data backups on offsite servers. In the event of a catastrophe at your main office, you may be able to restore some core functionality by accessing data backups through mobile devices.

Choose the right partner for your data recovery needs

Disaster recovery preparations are a serious responsibility, but you don’t have to undertake them alone. Great Lakes Computer offers comprehensive agentless backup and recovery plans, so that you can rest easy knowing that your critical data is always as protected as possible.

Assuming your company is one of the many small business that has gotten better about data security and loss prevention, you are probably ahead of the curve. According to the Small Business Administration, most companies do attempt to backup critical data, but less than 40 percent of small companies have any formal plan at all. The time to realize that you need to prepare for a natural hazard or data hack is not after your office has suffered from a fire or a malicious virus has infected your servers. As you prepare your company’s data backup and recovery plan, consider these common mistakes.

Data Backup and Recovery Mistakes To Avoid

Actually, most small- and medium-sized businesses do attempt to backup critical data. At least, they do it once in awhile. However, they tend to store their backups onsite in the same vulnerable locations and connected to the same network as the computers they sourced the data from. Nothing prevents these onsite backups from being vulnerable to the same physical disasters or cyber attacks as the source computers. Offsite storage and automated backups are key to an efficient backup plan.

Also, while small businesses may have improved in the way they backup data, they don’t always have a clear plan in mind for recovery. It’s really only handy to have 500 customer orders stored on a backup drive if the software to manage those orders and another machine to run that software on are both readily available. The best time to discover flaws in your backup and recovery strategy is not after you have suffered from a loss of data.

How to Develop Foolproof Data and Recovery Strategies

The best suggestion is to run some tests of the recovery plan, especially for the most critical data, before disaster strikes. By the time your company’s survival depends upon your recovery method, it is too late to be testing it for the first time. Also, in the best of circumstances, recovery can take time. That’s why it is probably best to prioritize really critical systems that need to be online so you can continue to operate.

If most data is not that critical, it might be left in archives until the worst of the disaster has passed. For example, your company is surely eager to process customer orders as quickly as possible, but you might be able to put of prospecting for new customers until your recovery has been complete.