Is your small business in Ky.-Tenn. at risk for an IT disaster? Unfortunately, the answer is yes.
If you’ve been tuned into our month-long blog series on disaster recovery, you’ve learned how easy it is for your system to become infected with a virus due to malware and “ransomware”. You’ve also read about the ease with which your company’s important data can be breached and compromised.
As information technology is increasingly critical to operations of companies of all sizes, it is more important than ever for businesses to establish and maintain a plan for disaster recovery. Studies show that nearly half of businesses that have a major loss of data never reopen, and that if they do, it can take months or even years. This is why your small business needs a disaster recovery plan in place.
What’s a small business in Ky.-Tenn. to do?
Start with objectives. What are your recovery point objectives? Decide on your key low-level purposes for recovering data. And yes, you can plan for zero loss. It is possible to develop a recovery plan for your business-critical applications and data stores. ABR Systems Group small business IT consultants in Bowling Green, Ky. can help you define what systems need to be in place, their necessary location, and the how. Next, we can help you develop a timeline. What are your recovery time objectives? Base these on business need and priority.
What are some options?
- Server virtualization enables businesses to access and activate their data centers quickly, with a fast and relatively inexpensive recovery time.
- Your personnel mobility can allow for operations to continue remotely and minimize downtime. Just remember to develop a regular backup schedule for everyone on your team in order for this to work.
- There are third-party disaster recovery providers out there. ABR can help if this is an option you wish to pursue.
- Utilizing cloud services is a beautiful way to plan for disaster recovery. Your small business can pay for long-term data storage and servers as needed, which makes it a low-cost and flexible way to plan.
This is important: remember to stay connected with your customers. If your disaster is local, your clients will likely be aware that there’s a possibility of their data or your operations being lost. Utilize social networking or mobile connectivity to assure them that you’ve planned for an event and that they can rely on your disaster recovery strategy to keep their information safe and your processes advancing without missing much of a beat.
