The unfortunate truth in the world of business is that no one can predict the future. Time has a way of presenting roadblocks to progress, namely in the way of natural disasters. There are so many possible things that can go wrong at any given moment. The only constant is that none of it can be prepared for individually, and unfortunately, this is not a reality that many organizations are ready to accept.
“The adoption of [business continuity] practices remains low, as many a C-suite folks simply have the ‘it can’t happen to us‘ mentality or they have a subjective notion of risk assuming that they can withstand disaster,” wrote Forbes contributor Pragati Verma. “In addition, these days, BC spans so much more than disasters such as floods or hurricanes: even an IT service outage from a key supplier or a local event can disrupt productivity.”
This is why disaster recovery and business continuity strategies need to be broad and all-encompassing. By identifying as many possible scenarios as they can, companies can develop appropriate plans for when their servers go out or their information is lost. It will take quick response times to eliminate the effects of downtime, and having the right tools on hand to do so will be critical to survival.
Backup is crucial to all DR/BC plans
One of the best ways to bring about stronger means of protection is to make sure that all essential business operations has redundancies in place. From sensitive information to power and data lines, almost everything needs a backup in play for instances when the primary connection might be disrupted. It is like installing insurance.
“While insurance provides money to mitigate losses after the incident, a BC plan’s impact analysis offers an objective assessment of what it will cost to restore critical functions, so the business can continue to function and serve the needs of key customers and shareholders in the interim,” wrote Verma.
But while information and communication lines might be obvious redundancies to keep, there are other digital aspects that can be benefited by a backup copy. System settings are crucial to the proper operation of enterprise technology. Should these devices be wiped of their content or need to be re-imaged, they will lose all of the customizations and clearances that might have slowly been built up over time. If these computers need to be rushed back to the user immediately, there is a strong risk of something not being exactly how it was.
Human error should be a major consideration in all business continuity and disaster recovery strategies. It is better to automate certain processes whenever possible. Restore to reboot software can not only enable employees to solve many IT issues without assistance, but also takes and manages system snapshots. These snapshots are then used to reinstate configurations exactly as they were in the event of an error or failure. When coupled with a proper backup system for documents and files, there is little that can stand in the way of an organization.
Deep Freeze a viable option
One such program is available from Faronics. Deep Freeze software can provide peace of mind to companies who heavily rely on the performance of their computers. Additionally, Deep Freeze can be outfitted with the power of the cloud, allowing management and network monitoring to occur from anywhere in the world where there is an Internet connection.
The unpredictable nature demands solutions like Deep Freeze. Moving forward, it will be essential for companies to seek them out as a part of their disaster recovery and business continuity initiatives.
