What is a disaster recovery system or service?
Disaster recovery is a service that allows organisations to continue operating after a disaster or a disruption has happened.
The aim is to ensure that key personnel have access to the organisations’ computer systems and critical information in the event that either by natural or by human intervention or even by a computer virus, a company cannot continue normal operating procedures.
Why do I need it?
Quite simply, if you don’t have one it can seriously damage your company’s reputation even to the point where it can go out business.
What procedures should I put in place?
You will need to ensure that a data retention policy is in place. This needs to be written by HR, IT and legal departments or by a specialist organisation.
How will I know what to back-up?
Every department will place a ‘value’ on their information i.e. what should be stored. What is important to one person may not be to someone else. As a result, you must involve all those elements within a company and agree to what should be retained. From an administrative perspective, that person must be fully capable of recognising the ‘value’ of that information.
From that point, you can decide what to keep, what to delete or what to purge.
What are the implications of not having a disaster recovery service or plan in place?
The result can potentially put your company out of business. Statistically, the majority of organisations’ without such a service or system will fail if they are impacted by a disaster.
Is it expensive?
This depends on the size of organisation and its’ operational requirements. Some companies really need a mission critical, water-tight service. Others really just need to take a regular (daily if possible) copy of data on the network or PC and retain this in a safe place. It is still worth investigating a service as there are many solutions that are very cost effective.
Is it something that I can install myself?
This depends on your needs, but yes it is possible to install it yourself. Generally, however, disaster recovery works as a service so it is still worth investigating.
What is data recovery?
Data recovery is a service that allows information that has been stored on a hard drive to be retrieved, even if the hard drive has been damaged or broken.
How do I find the right vendor or reseller?
Conjungo is a great starting point because it will let you search for a supplier according to your location, company type, size and whether they have the right accreditations. Furthermore, Conjungo is completely unbiased, lists most of the major vendors’ resellers and it is free to use.
Is a data archive easy to use?
It should be! Depending on the system users should be able to access the information easily.
What about the Data Protection Act?
You must be particularly careful with certain records, and for example, employee details should be kept secure (with HR) in order not to contravene the Data Protection Act.
How will I know if my organisation is regulated in some way?
You can either ask your lawyer, accountant or potentially a trade body that deals with your type of company.
Do the regulations and codes of practice apply to small companies?
Small organisations need to be aware of all of the issues and codes of practice that might have an impact on their company. The law applies to all organisations regardless of size.