These figures are indicative that no company is immune to a data-loss event. Fortunately, your lack of absolute immunity doesn’t mean you should prepare to recover after disaster strikes. Here we share practical insights that will enable you to recover successfully after a data loss tragedy, helping you to develop a strategy for the tragedy.
Conduct an Asset Inventory
First, account for all the data and IT assets you want to recover after a tragedy. It’s impossible to draw a successful plan if you don’t know precisely what you want to restore. Hence, assess and note all data items down. For example, you can create an inventory of your network appliances, data, or servers. This way, you will be better placed to succeed in your Office 365 backup before disaster strikes.
Assess the Risk
Next, assess and determine the possible kind of risks you could face. Various risks cause emergencies, so your priority should be to define which ones your business is most exposed to, and to prepare for them. Also, make sure to estimate the degree of disruption or damage those threats could cause to your business.
Determine Each Application’s and Data’s Importance
Afterwards, establish every asset’s importance level. It’s not enough to say you have valuable assets worth protecting. Instead, it’s better to establish their value and establish a protocol that will prioritize them in your recovery strategy. Such an approach will allow you to keep track of the number of resources to direct towards each asset in its order of priority.
Set Your Recovery Goals
Then, establish your data recovery goals. This stage involves sitting down with your team to determine what you want to achieve. You have to decide what you want to get out of the recovery. For example, you can determine that you want a recovery plan to give you undisrupted operational continuity. If you run an e-commerce site, you may want to ensure that your website is not down for more than six hours. Calculate how long you can stay offline without suffering from significant business losses.
Decide the Right Technology to Use
You also have to detail which tools you will use to effect a successful recovery plan. The kind and quality of tools you have in mind will determine your recovery’s success. Luckily, the market has various techniques you can employ during a disaster. It’s up to you to select each tool based on the protection levels you want to achieve. Therefore, assess your protection needs before opting for any. The reason is that each option has different cost and complexity implications. So, be careful that you don’t incur unaffordable costs and complexity. If you’re not careful, your good intentions could fail.
Consult All Your Stakeholders
It’s beneficial to involve everyone on board before finalizing the plan. You have to consult all the department heads and users of the assets you want to back up and recover. This way, you will win their support and gain their valuable input.
Write and Share the Strategy
You need to document the recovery plan after getting every stakeholder’s contribution. Documentation means it’s a serious plan everyone should work towards. It also creates a sense of urgency, responsibility, and accountability within your organization. Remember, people are most likely to forget over 95% of the plan unless you write it down.
Test Your Strategy
You have to test your plan and see how well it works. You can do this successfully by simulating an emergency. This testing plan will facilitate the next closing point—assessing and improving it.
Assess and Improve It
After testing it, you will be better placed to know how well it can work in the face of different threats. Consequently, you will know if it’s up to date with the latest challenges and your current data recovery needs. This way, you will be in an advantageous position to improve it progressively. Should we say more? Of course, not. We have put all the keys in your hand. Act today and create a recovery plan to give you the upper hand during a data crash emergency.
