Nobody likes thinking about this, but businesses are fragile entities. Enough hardship and loss will greatly weaken the foundation that keeps the business running smoothly. What if your business suffered from a fire, devastating flood, or earthquake destroys your server? Would you be able to pick up the pieces and start over?

A disaster can come in many forms and can strike at an time.  Most people are too busy to really think long and hard about contingency plans, let alone have operational policies in place that will guide them through a major disruptive event.  Some people think fires and floods and earthquakes, but for BrightWire Networks, anytime there is significant loss of data, we consider it a major disaster. This opens things up to theft, malevolent or careless users, power surges, viruses - if there is data loss, it's a disaster.

Let's use a fire as an example. Let's say a fire makes your office inaccessible until major repairs are made. Your workstations, your servers, and your network infrastructure were destroyed. Fortunately, you have a remote location to set up a very temporary shop with some used or loaned computer equipment until the restoration is complete. This sounds like a lucky break, but what happened to all of your company data?

We can't stress the importance of data enough. Your client information, your internal documents, processes, and templates, contracts, and so much more is all stored digitally. If you lose your data, you are starting from scratch. Computers can be purchased, new office space can be acquired, and things can go back to normal as long as you save your data.

Backing up your data often is the first step. We recommend at the very least a daily incremental backup, although the more often you back your data up, the less you lose. Ensure all aspects of your business are backed up, from your files to your CRM tools to your email, regardless of what solutions you use. In an emergency, you want the restoration process to be seamless, so consider options like disk-to-disk backup over tape, to improve the speed of data restoration. Your IT provider needs to regularly test your backup as well, and slower mediums like tape can make that expensive and time consuming.

Of course, if your backup is sitting at the office during a fire, it won't do you much good. Employing an off site data backup service at a secure, reliable datacenter will ensure that no matter what happens to your business, your data is protected. Often, in the event of a disaster, you can have complete access to your data the next day. This puts you back to a "business as usual" status faster.

If your data doesn't get recovered, you will come to find that building your data back up and dealing with the disruption it causes your business is the most time consuming and expensive element of the disaster.

Looking to establish a bullet-proof backup and disaster recovery system for your business? Contact us today at 360-528-6017 and ask us about our backup solutions for small and medium-sized businesses.