Is your business ready for disasters? Every business is subject to disruptions that could seriously impact productivity and often results to huge amount of losses. For this reason, a disaster recovery plan is strongly recommended to help ensure that your business would be able to continue operating and recover when unexpected events occur.

To make it simple, disaster recovery is a term commonly used in Information Technology (IT) to emphasize the necessity for backup technology systems in order to:

a. Minimize disruptions to the business,

b. Quickly get the business up and running after a crash, and

c. Make certain than no data is lost.

Interesting facts and figures

• A recent survey of Australian SMEs showed that 44% do not have confidence in their internal data recovery and backup systems.

• 43% of businesses don’t have disaster recovery plan. Of those, 8% have no plans to create a strategy and 35% intend to create one sometime in the future.

• System downtime could cost an average of $32,800 per day and SMBs won’t likely recover all of their data when systems come back online.

• 93% of companies that lost their data center for 10 days or more due to a disaster filed for bankruptcy within one year of the disaster.(Source: Strategic Research Institute, Jan. 2002.)

• 70% of all successful attacks on computer networks were carried out by employees and insiders.

There are numerous types of threats or disruptive events that can prevent businesses from functioning properly. There are 4 major categories:

1. Natural

2. Man-made / Human

3. Medical

4. Technological

Natural

• Blizzard

• Hurricane

• Wind storm

• Rain

• Snow

Man-made / Human

• Terrorism

• Hacking

• Intentional/accidental deletion or alteration of critical company data

• Theft

• Terrorism

Medical

• Pandemic flu

• Dengue fever

• SARS

• H1N1

• Other contagious diseases

Technological

• Hardware malfunction

• Software malfunction

• Security breaches

• Malware

• Obsoleteness

Now that you’ve learned about some of the threats, you’re probably wondering "What should I do now?". Fortunately, there are several counter measures you can take to help ensure that your company would be able to survive in case of a disastrous event. These are some of the things you can include in your disaster recovery plan.

Preventive measures

• Using backup power supply systems and surge protectors

• Back-up generator

• Installation of antivirus, firewall, and other security features

• Backing up data

• Remote access

• Regulating user access to data by assigning usernames and passwords

• Regular hardware maintenance

• Regularly update the security features of the network

• Fire alarms and accessible fire extinguishers

Among all the preventive measures mentioned above, installing security features (antivirus, firewall, anti-spyware, etc.) and backing up data are probably the most important solutions. If ever your company’s financial data got wiped out due to an unexpected event, would you be able to prove what payments you've made, and what customers owe you? Let me remind you that 93% of companies that lost their data center for 10 days or more due to a disaster filed for bankruptcy within one year of the disaster. Call 1300885200 now to learn more about disaster recovery and how we could help your company.