5 IT Reasons To Develop A Disaster Recovery Plan

Our continued reliance on IT systems has made having a disaster recovery plan more important than ever, and yet many businesses haven’t implemented any kind of formalized plan. It seems to be one of those things that management is only interested in when there is an immediate need (i.e. why worry about it unless the office is burning down or flooding at that moment?). For a disaster recovery plan to be effective, though, it must be in place and well-practised long before something actually goes wrong.

In order to maintain business continuity, there must be a plan to protect or correct any issues that may cause problems with the IT or data storage systems. Think about it this way: If there was a fire at your business tonight, are you prepared to deal with the consequences? If a malicious hacker were to get into your system, would you be able to bounce back after losing all your important information?

These are real concerns that businesses need to consider. They may or may not happen, but companies that gamble on the chance that it won’t happen are the ones that never recover from a disaster. History has shown us that if companies suffer a major loss of business data, only a small percentage of them ever bounce back. With that in mind, here are five more reasons to develop a disaster recovery plan early.

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2. 1 Disasters can happen anytime – Whether it is a natural disaster like an earthquake or a flood, or a disaster caused by human error or intention (spilled drinks or hacking attempts), there is no way to tell when you will experience a major disaster. No one wants to think that their business could be physically destroyed by a tornado tomorrow, but that won’t stop it from happening.
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4. 2. Save money – When any kind of natural disaster strikes, the costs can very quickly get out of hand. Whether you are rebuilding your business or the internal network, if you weren’t prepared for this contingency it is going to hit the budget really hard. This is one of the major reasons why businesses that suffer major data losses or other IT problems have such a hard time making a full recovery.
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6. 3. Mitigate losses – There’s more at stake than your network. If you have a disaster recovery plan you will be in a position to deal with a number of related problems. The loss of important data can cripple your business continuity, but it can also cause people to lose confidence in your company. Prepare your plan early and you can protect the things that are important.
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8. 4. Reduce confusion – A major disaster in any company can cause serious chaos and confusion as everyone scrambles around to try and correct the problem. If you have a formalized plan (and you have studied, reviewed, and practiced this plan), you will be in a better position to overcome the disaster and get back to work.
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10. 5. Government mandated – Some industries are actually required by the government to have a formalized disaster recovery plan and to back up their important and sensitive materials off site. Not everyone has to deal with these regulations, but it does show how important these precautions are if you deal with sensitive information.

Developing a disaster recovery plan does not have to be difficult, and the reason most companies are caught unprepared is not because they couldn’t do it, but because they never got around to it. We never know when the next disaster is going to strike, but there are many good reasons to be prepared.

[Source: Techsling.com]

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5 IT Shortcuts That Put Your Companys Data at Risk

IT departments looking to save time and money shouldn't be doing so at the expense of their data protection. A study from the University of Texas revealed that 43% of companies suffering from catastrophic data loss close and never reopen, and 51% close within two years.

1. Ignoring Hardware Failures

Hardware failures are the leading cause of data loss. Though most IT professionals don't completely disregard hardware that is failing to back up company data and systems, many do often ignore the fact that certain backup mediums have high failure rates, such as tape or a SAN or NAS storage device that is used as both the source and target of a backup. To reduce the risk of hardware failures, move data from primary storage to a separate, secondary storage device. Disk-to-disk backup is the best approach, as it's more reliable than tape and still ensures a physically separate secondary storage set that can survive hardware and system failures.

2. Trusting Co-workers to Follow Policies

The reality is that employees aren't always great at following company policies, and even when they do, mistakes still happen. The best defenses against human error are automation and retention. Automation enables automatic execution and strict enforcement of created policies and procedures, and retention enables data recovery, regardless of whether the data loss is noticed right away or weeks later.

3. Underestimating Cybercriminals

By now, most companies have at least basic security solutions, such as firewalls and anti-virus software, in place to defend against malware. But cybercriminals are becoming very adept at breaking through traditional cyberdefenses. IT professionals should evaluate their infrastructure, identify areas of vulnerability and implement advanced security solutions to overcome them. These solutions include web monitoring software for safe Internet usage, end-point protection for bring-your-own-device management and a sandbox to fight targeted attacks. From a backup perspective, the best approach is to operate backup and disaster-recovery solutions on a non-Windows operating system. Windows has long been one of cybercriminals' favorite targets, and running protection software on an operating system that is relentlessly under attack just doesn't make sense.

4. Playing the Odds

Despite data-loss horror stories, many companies still don't have disaster-recovery plans in place to protect information from natural and man-made disasters. And many of the companies that do have set plans have just one general set of guidelines that apply to all disaster situations. A strong plan focuses on people, infrastructure and processes, and clearly outlines how each is affected in different disaster scenarios.

5. Failing to Test Disaster-Recovery Plans

Failure to test disaster-recovery plans, or testing them on an infrequent basis, can greatly increase the risk of data loss in the event of a disaster. Since IT infrastructure evolves daily, thorough testing must be done on a consistent schedule that allows it to be adopted as yet another standard business practice.

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How to avoid accidental social media disasters

Do you have an active social media life? If the answer is a ‘Yes’ you need to be reading this post.

Post the ‘Weinergate’ incident, when an accidental tweet with an obscene photo that should have been made via direct message to an on-line girlfriend went public on Rep. Weiner’s timeline forcing his resignation, it is time to list out ways to avoid such social media disasters.

Armed with Android smartphones and numerous social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter is by itself a challenging situation. So you have your personal Twitter and Facebook account, and your companies’/clients’ both on a computer and sometimes even on your smartphone. Juggling these daily is daunting to say the least.

The other aspect is your own social life and how you conduct yourself in social circles, what pictures you post on Twitter and Facebook and so on. Ask around and you’re sure to know quite a number of people who have suffered the ‘Freudian slip’ or in this case the ‘Freudian click’ sending the wrong message to an ex-flame/spouse. You end up dealing with not just the horror of such a predicament but also the sinking feeling that it could have been easily avoided.

Here’s how you can avoid accidental social media disasters:

1. Always have multiple browsers for handling personal and professional social media accounts. This is by far is the simplest way to sort things out in your head before you post both professional and personal status messages. So, having IE, Chrome, Safari and Firefox for different purposes is adding order to the chaos.

2. Applications like Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, Seesmic and others all provide quick social media posts from multiple Twitter and Facebook accounts. So, using a particular application for professional use and another for personal is the way to go.

3. Direct messages on Twitter or Facebook messages may seem private, but never forget that nothing on the internet is really private.

4. Be funny but remember the virtual world is full of real people and this includes your friends, family, professional acquaintances, co-workers and other plain nosey people. And there are a few things that should not be shared on Facebook and Twitter.

5. If you are a politician or celebrity, the personal and the professional blur – the social media world may have a lot of bots but there are real people out there, so behave as you would in the real world.

6. After writing out a post or attaching a photo make sure to read it again and checking that its leaving from the right account before hitting ‘send’.

7. Posting from smartphones both in a professional and personal capacity is not good idea. Period. Unless you have two smartphones, which again is just a disaster waiting to happen.

So well accidents happen online all the time and some people pay a heavy price as online reputation is there for all to see and every action you take in the virtual world leaves a trail for someone to dig it all up again. Hiring online reputation management consultants is another way to deal with this.

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