Businesses need disaster recovery plans to avoid technology downtime.

News provided by

Sep 28, 2016, 10:00 ET

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., Sept. 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- StratX IT Solutions is often asked, "To create a disaster recovery plan, do you need backup or a business continuity plan?" Many believe that data backup and business continuity plans are one in the same but they are not.

The short answer: You need both for your business to recover from a disaster and continue operations within hours. Data backup and business continuity plans are complimentary and coordinated solutions. But let's backup for a minute (bad pun intended).

It all starts with data backup. You need a backup solution to have a business continuity plan. Solutions put in place a decade or so ago are no longer suited to meet today's needs. Data backup falls into three basic categories:

Data stored onsite on hardware
Data stored in the cloud via the internet
Hybrid onsite-cloud backup (combines the first two categories)

Having only onsite or cloud backup alone is risky. What happens if the power goes out or the device fails? What if you lose connectivity to the internet or the cloud fails?

StratX recommends a robust hybrid backup solution. Robust backup contains full server images vs. only files or data, which can be activated as servers in a disaster allowing you to work as if your original servers were still functioning – this is where a business continuity plan comes into play.

Business continuity isn't a product that you purchase per se, it's the action plan that is designed and managed by your IT staff or vendor. The plan lays out how you will access your server, software, applications and data when disaster strikes with a timeline to achieve that access. And, it should be continually tested. Troubleshooting a failed "test" is better than losing days, weeks or even months reinstalling and configuring your systems.

We recommend asking your IT staff:

How quickly can my business be up and running in a disaster?
Do we have documented disaster recovery plan which meets our regulatory requirements?
Is all of our critical data backed up daily?
How fast can we get our systems up back to pre-disaster operating state?
Are we continually testing the plan?

The only safe way to head-off downtime of your systems, regardless of the cause, is to be informed and prepared.

SOURCE StratX IT Solutions