Preparing for storm season a year-round endeavor
There are always disasters on the horizon, no matter where a business is located or what kind of industry it’s involved in. Preparing for the plethora of potential incidents can seem overwhelming, but there are basic steps that every organization can take to safeguard themselves from threats, both digital and physical. Especially with stories about major tornadoes, earthquakes and other natural phenomena covering the airwaves, it’s essential that companies take the time to assess how firms in the line of fire in these incidents responded. Learning from the mistakes of others can help other companies avoid the same fate in the future.
Assessing past disaster scenarios
Forbes wrote that major disasters like Hurricane Sandy illustrate how ill-prepared some parts of the world are for disaster recovery endeavors. After the 2013 Atlantic Hurricane Season, businesses in that territory should be wary of the National Weather Service’s annual report on the possible outcomes of the summer and early fall months.
One of the winning strategies employed by resolute businesses hit by the hurricane was investing in offsite data centers. Even cloud-based organizations like Wall Street and Facebook, which tend to be thought of as operating mainly in the cloud, have their digital resources harbored in far-flung hardware and backup tape management centers across the country and around the world. These high-capacity information storage facilities kept major businesses running even when their power lines and primary file transmission channels were down. Such thorough backup and disaster recovery plans are essential for maintaining corporate continuity even in the face of ultimate chaos.
Isolating the key resources
In order to ensure that businesses have remote backups in place that totally encompass corporate operations, firms must first understand the files and applications they need to maintain function. Network World stated that high priority resources should be the primary concern of companies looking to safeguard their IT assets from eventual disaster.
This requires that organizations gain a full understanding of their data centers. Businesses need to assess every aspect of their operations, from overall file resource depth to the price of heating and cooling the hardware needed to manage these assets. Cloud deployments allow companies to remotely access files and maintain operations no matter what happens to physical infrastructure, but these assets are not enough on their own to ensure that disaster recovery is a given. Companies should take stock of their resources and make certain that all their assets are backed up in a redundant manner so that no disaster can take them offline.