Companies continue to ignore disasters
For some reason, small business owners seem to think that disasters are going away. Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, blizzards and wind storms aren’t about to get bored and find something else to do. It just means they aren’t affecting you right now. When they do, though, companies are often unprepared and fail to take preventative measures against such crises.
Better data structures
One of the best things a business can do is invest in backup tape tracking, since a disaster will require that a company be able to restore a full image of files from their most recent updates, providing accurate resumption of business. If a business is not prepared to meet this restart requirement, either from lack of connectivity to a backup service or failing to have one in the first place, it could spell disaster for a corporation.
“The best protection is prevention,” said Scott Moyer of Symantec in a Mother Nature News interview. “Establish a structured backup procedure. Periodically test the backups to verify that data, especially databases and other critical files, are being backed up properly.”
Increased storage use
Creating a structure for backup tape management is not enough, as Moyer stated. Companies need to ensure that the information is being refreshed regularly and is up-to-date. Having files stored remotely to improve continuity is only half of the plan as the data contained therein needs to be as recent as possible. Whether that means adding to current backup guidelines or getting imaging, tracking or other software onboard, this needs to be as much a priority as building backups in the first place.
According to Symantec, this is something that more than half of all small businesses aren’t doing at all. A survey by the organization found that 80 percent of companies with existing business continuity plans in place also aren’t happy with what they have to work with. Instead of remaining complacent, PG Magazine wrote that executives and leaders need to be reminded of how critical backup tape storage is to the livelihood of a company, and rather than letting these facilities slide, they should be the centerpieces of IT discussions.