Disaster Recovery Planning

As businesses become more dependent on technology to improve productivity, it has become a necessity to have a Disaster Recovery Plan. Disaster Recovery is the process through which a company recovers access to their databases, hardware and software that are critical to the functioning of the company in case of a breach or natural disaster.

Small and mid-sized businesses that rely upon online communication are at risk the most from these disasters. Basically, the more connected they are, the higher the risk. The first step in this process should be for your business to decide what actually constitutes a “disaster” for your organization. What may be considered a disaster for one business may not be considered as serious for another. Once you have defined your tolerances, then you can begin to define the actions needed to recover from a true disaster.

In addition to a natural disaster, one additional problem in small companies is the fact that users often open mails from unknown recipients, install random applications, and downloading unsafe trial software on the server. These businesses also tend to be understaffed, so most of the focus is on the business itself and security procedures are often a second thought, leaving them more at risk.

There are ways, however, of recovering from disaster and a Disaster Recovery Plan is key to keeping your business open and running. Here are a few tips for making a Disaster Recovery Plan:

• Train your employees about security protocols and warn them about how they can put the company at risk through a single action. After all, prevention is the best cure.
•  Assign specific roles to employees in the face of a disaster. These roles are to be followed strictly. For example, one employee can be in charge of making the company’s website accessible, one should be in charge of communications and so on.
•  Decide the main priorities in case of a disaster so that everyone is clear on what crucial aspects need to be fixed first to get the company running again.
•  All employees must be provided with a hard copy of names and numbers of important members who can help in case of a disaster.
•  Have a list of companies that can help you in case you lose all your data and keep a hard copy handy.
•  Take help from your web host. They can help figure out where the breach is and might be able to stop it.

Overall, the key to disaster recovery is planning and not panicking. The more you panic, the worse it gets. Having a plan prevents you from panicking and instead helps you focus on recovery. To find out how KeeFORCE can help your business plan for an unexpected disaster, contact us today by calling (270) 366-0053.