"Halloween is quickly approaching. Readers beware! Does your company have a data recovery plan or are you taking the risk of the horrors that could occur without one? As the amount of information we collect becomes larger, planning for disaster should be of large importance. You never know what might be lurking around the corner. Being prepared is in your best interest!
Disaster Recovery is a step-by-step plan outlining how a company recovers and restores lost data and resume critical business functions after a natural or man-made disaster. Think of it as basically a ""data insurance policy"". In the event of a disaster, having a formalized plan that focuses on replicating and restoring business operations will alleviate a lot of stress and keep your business operations running smoothly. Although data protection is highly recommended, it's not a part of some companies' agendas.
According to Disaster Recovery website, ""Only about 50% of companies report having a Disaster Recovery Plan."" What would happen to the other half of businesses if calamity were to strike? Would they be prepared? As business data and information grows, it is important to have an understanding of the vulnerabilities that exist and how to protect against serious nightmares that could result in lost sales and revenues, customers, and proprietary data.
Disasters occur unannounced whether natural or man-made. There is no warning before they hit. Man-made disasters can be deliberate or an accident. They can involve an employee, customer, contractor or even an outsider. What if your employee installs a virus that makes it way to your server housing all of your customer data? What if that virus destroys everything in its path? These types of scenarios occur all of the time. Another example of a man-made disaster involving a data center is The National Security Agency's new billion dollar data center in Utah. When attempting to open, it suffered from electrical issues for 13 months. According to the Wall Street Journal, ""The data centers electrical problems included fiery explosions and circuit failure"" which resulted in some serious consequences and delays.
Consequences can be equally devastating to a business with natural disasters. One of the most well known data center disasters occurred with the arrival of Hurricane Sandy, which was the deadliest and most destructive hurricane of 2012. Sandy wiped out over 8 million homes and businesses including many companies' primary data centers. New York data centers were among the hardest hit with flooding that took down power and knocked out diesel fuel generators. Companies like Internap and Peer 1 struggled to continue operations at their data centers.
No matter what the causes may be, events such as these are horrific reminders of the importance of being prepared if a disaster strikes. Make sure to visit us on Friday for Part 2: Cloud Horror Stories: Don't Repeat These Mistakes."
