Lison Joseph is a contributor at Free-backup.info — the home of the popular Amazon S3 based online backup service — Back2zip. This article available at http://free-backup.info/disaster-is-natural-recovery-is-superhuman.html
Disaster is Natural, Recovery is Superhuman!
It is common knowledge that a disaster can strike anywhere, anytime, but the important question is are we prepared for a quick recovery in the eventuality of a disaster. Though most business houses, even the small ones, are meticulous when it comes to thinking ahead of their times and devising future strategies to take the company ahead, a common mistake is ignoring the possibility of a disaster crippling the firm. Critical data loss could well be the fatal prescription for a company that is otherwise doing well.
Disasters could mean anything, especially in the context of information technology and communication. It does not necessarily mean a natural disaster like flood or earthquake. More often than not disaster means the break down of communication channels or the technical infrastructure that supports the high value traffic/transactions of virtual entity like an online shop.
Think in advance for a swift disaster recovery
Several surveys in the US have shown that disaster often spells doom for the affected industries because nobody had a credible disaster recovery plan in place! It is not rare to see enterprises closing shop within a year or two after the disasters strike because they were unable to manage a sustainable disaster recovery. Loss of critical data regarding the transactions of the company is usually the reason for the inability to sustain.
Though everybody in the field seems to understand that backup is the only cost effective solution for any kind of disaster, very few are able to implement a strategy that works in times of a crisis as is shows by absence of successful recovery rates!
Hence, it is of paramount importance to have a well thought-out disaster recovery plan in place to address a range of disasters that could strike the company any time. Often times, recovery means survival in business terms.
So, what constitutes a successful disaster recovery plan?
A remarkable disaster recovery means getting the act together and resuming the production activity with minimum downtime. Prolonged periods of downtime mean higher loss of revenue. For high volume/value portals like Amazon or Ebay, downtime of a mere hour could mean revenue losses to the tune of several thousand dollars. The revenue loss would be higher if the downtime is during the peak traffic time.
A successful recovery plan envisages minimum or no loss of critical data as well as resumption of production activity with the least possible or no downtime. Though this might sound like unattainable objectives, with simple planning and meticulous preparation, these aims can be achieved without any difficulty and is possible even for small business houses.
Therefore, if you have not thought about disaster recovery plan for you company yet, then know that it is always better late than never! Get your act together now and form a disaster recovery team to work on a viable solution for your company. You do not necessarily have to hire an outside firm to do this for you. It is very much OK to form a team of all the heads of departments of your firm to work out a plan.
