Blog: Picking the right Disaster Recovery Provider

News provided by

Nov 11, 2013, 03:00 ET

LONDON, November 11, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Choosing the most appropriate Disaster Recovery solution for your business can be a challenge.

There's no shortage of DR service providers, many offering a bewildering number of options

How do you begin to choose between them?

We'll show you how to create a shortlist of appropriate providers for your needs. It's essential to identify the DR services that satisfy your demands on a technical basis. From there, we'll take into account pricing, contract length and other less tangible factors.

Guide to Business Continuity:

Firstly, you need be clear what your Business Continuity requirements are. Speak to the stakeholders in the business and ensure you have the information below:

RPO (Recovery Point Objectives)

How often do you require your systems to be backed up?

RTO (Recovery Time Objectives)

What is the maximum time allowable to recover all your IT systems?

Data retention

For how long must data be held?

Legal issues

Geographically, where can the data be held? Are you comfortable with your data being held outside your own legal jurisdiction?

Once these parameters are established, you need to ask whether your business needs DR, backup or both?

Backups are best visualised as a tape (although backups can be stored on any media). Yes, your data has been saved, but holding that tape in your hand does not help your business in the days or weeks it can take to recover from a serious incident.

Where Disaster Recovery has the advantage over backups…

A DR provider holds all your data, applications and systems; if you invoke your provider will recover a fully functional instance of your entire IT infrastructure as it was at the point of the last snapshot. This allows the business to continue to operate while your own systems are recovered or replaced.

The downside of Disaster Recovery…

Disaster Recovery costs more than backup because your data is held on higher performance infrastructure capable of running systems, not just storing static data. You also pay for the DR service and periodic DR testing.

Long term retention needs?

If your business requires long term data retention (the ability to access your data as it existed at a point three years ago, for example), explore the costs of maintaining long term data storage with your DR provider versus other cheaper storage options.

Fine-tuning your selection…

Having established these basics of your own requirements, you can approach DR providers and provide them with your summarised list of requirements.

Thirdly you should pull together a checklist of certifications and qualities you require in your supplier.

For the UK these should include:

ISO 27001 accreditation for security management
Professional negligence cover
Infrastructure overview
Financial history
Company structure

For further consideration, these factors could be key to your decision:

Company background and history
Overview of services, features and capabilities
Bios of management and other personnel
Ease of contact, plus location
Vendor's proposed solution and timeline
Maximum possible period of data loss
Length of time to having full systems operational at the data centre
Frequency of DR testing
Any extra charges for recovery
The length of time the business can run on the DR infrastructure following an outage
Scalability
Technical requirements
Any required third party costs
Support and maintenance
Client testimonials
Awards, accolades and special certifications