IT Disaster Recovery: Know the step by step
An IT disaster recovery plan has as its main goal to quickly restore your data and processes. Thus, in the event of a failure, the interruption of operations is minimized. In addition, it guarantees reliability and organizational stability, avoiding the loss of confidential information, fundamental to the operation of companies.
The main key for a successful restructuring is anticipation. Therefore, it is important that the manager makes a detailed planning, with a comprehensive documentation of attitudes that must be taken before, during and after the event that caused the problem or instability in the system.
It is very difficult to predict this kind of situation, which may occur in an accidental or purposeful way. Fire, lightning, flooding, problems in the operating system, hardware or even cyber crime are the main causes. In these cases, the recovery plan is essential to mitigate the effects of the failure and preserve data integrity.
Don’t you have an IT disaster recovery plan in your company yet? Then follow it step by step to create and adopt that security strategy for your business. Check it out!
Be aware of the main risks
The first step in structuring this strategy is to identify the main threats that may affect your infrastructure, such as: operating system failures, team errors and power outages. Recognizing these vulnerabilities and the points of greatest weakness is something that helps the manager to adopt procedures that increase the security of systems and determine a course of action to reverse the situation.
For example, if the region in which your company operates occurs flooding or has a high rate of lightning strike, working with data on a single internal server is not a good idea. In this type of situation, the most suitable is to have a service in the cloud, in which the information is allocated to an external server, fully protected against weather and phenomena of nature.
Prioritize what should be recovered
For the disaster recovery plan to succeed, it is necessary to establish the order in which actions must be taken. This way, the failure generates less impact on business operations, especially if it is caused by a malware attack.
Therefore, establish which are the most critical services for the company’s operation (website, manufacturing, e-mail, among others) and determine the restoration order and data recovery time.
However, it is necessary to analyze this step in detail and simulate what would be the main causes of a disaster in the organization. This way it is possible to find out what resources are necessary for the service to be active again and online in the shortest time possible, maintaining the security of corporate information.
Choose the ideal time and type of backup for your recovery plan
Besides determining the time, another factor that should be considered by IT management is the recovery point. These details prepare your business to face errors, crashes and system failures. Thus, there is a guarantee that there is a backup capable of meeting the organization’s needs and continue its activities.
For example: if your company works with e-commerce, but does not want to lose any sales until the moment of the disaster, the ideal recovery point should be the last second in which the site was active. Another relevant point is to have an automated data backup in operation, so that your activities are re-established and your page gets back online in the shortest time possible.
Count on the guidance of experts on the subject
Creating an efficient IT disaster recovery plan is not always a simple task. To be successful, it is necessary to impartially analyze all your available infrastructure and the capacity of your team. A critical eye helps detect risks and vulnerabilities before a disaster even occurs.
For the entire process to be carried out efficiently, a good option is to seek the help of experts in the field, through IT consulting. In this way, the professional can guide the manager to develop an intelligent plan with the use of the most appropriate technological solutions for the demand of your business.
Make tests as many times as necessary
Practice leads to perfection. Therefore, when the subject is restructuring strategy, the most recommended is to test your plan repeatedly. After all, it will not be totally reliable unless the manager checks it to be implemented later. Even if disaster recovery is planned, it is necessary to check its operation online.
So, do the tests in full. This way, the plan can be changed if something fails and if some point went unnoticed can be added to the final version, which will be effectively implemented. But, remember: a single simulation is not enough and, with the repetition, your system can be improved over time.
Define procedures policies for IT disaster recovery
After following the above steps and ensuring that the plan will work as planned, you should determine what roles managers and employees should take on during a disaster. In order to avoid problems, each person involved must have a specific function in order to act in a harmonious manner with the other employees. However, if someone fails, the whole plan will be compromised, since the action of one employee will depend on another.
Therefore, define in detail what the responsibilities of each employee will be in the event of an IT disaster. Conduct training and simulations with everyone involved so that the procedure policy is tested and approved. Under these conditions, in a real situation, employees will know what to do with preparation and strategy.
Although the probability of a disaster occurring in your business is uncertain, waiting for the problem to occur to correct it is a big mistake and can compromise the continuity of your company’s activities. Therefore, it is essential to anticipate and count on an IT disaster recovery plan.
Although recovering all your infrastructure can take time, it ensures that all corporate information is safe and can be recovered without leaks or loss of data.
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