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Effective IT Disaster Recovery Solutions That You Can Implement Yourself

Considering IT disaster recovery case studies and IT disaster recovery examples can really help you to determine what IT disaster recovery strategy you should opt for in our business.

We have summarized, in this article, some of the more common IT disaster recovery services and options that companies select these days.

For example, many companies choose a data backup and recovery path that is centralized, economical and easy to roll out on a daily basis.

With the adoption of a few simple techniques, businesses can avoid the long-term revenue loss, downtime and inconveniences that can result from IT disaster recovery failure. Let’s take a look at these IT disaster recovery management options below:-

· Having all PC information stored in a share file area on a central server.

· Backing up this information on a regular basis: use a schedule that the business can support - either daily, nightly or weekly.

· Backing up and storing the data on permanent, removable data storage media, such as CDs, DVDs or tape cartridges.

· Storing the backed up data files in a cool, dry place, in a safe location away from the business such as a safety deposit box at the bank.

· Ensuring that staff use daily virus protection software and conduct regular upgrade updates to this software.

· Ensuring that staff scan emails and other attachments when they download things from the web, as a matter of course.

· Providing employees with the IT disaster recovery training to recognize how attachments are presented in e-mails and how to delete unwanted e-mail messages without opening them.

· Educating yourself regularly on Internet viruses by visiting anti-virus software websites and using virus and IT disaster recovery software.


If you have the funds, invite professional IT disaster recovery vendors to come and inspect your existing systems and talk to them about what your needs are.

They will in turn, present to you an IT disaster recovery business case and then if you accept their IT disaster recovery report they will implement a new centralized backup and recovery solution on top of your existing servers.

Getting a quote from IT disaster recovery vendors won’t cost you anything. In fact it might well be the best thing you ever do.

If you want to improve your data integrity and save time, money and wear and tear on your infrastructure, then call IT disaster recovery vendors today and ask for some free disaster recovery info on how they can secure your systems.

Why Every Business Needs An IT Disaster Recovery Plan

If you run a business then you will know that you just cannot risk the integrity of your data to loss, malfunction of mischievous manipulation. Over the years companies have implemented a myriad of different IT disaster recovery strategies in order to back up and recover their data in the advent of attack, system failure or human error.

These IT disaster recovery services have taken the form of both hardware and IT disaster recovery software based solutions and have all been designed to perform regular backups to let you recover from system failures, virus attacks, or natural disasters or in the event of intruder attacks – to restore your data to its last authentic position.

Many companies still rely on IT disaster recovery services that are tape based and this can be a little risky, if you leave it in the hands of an employee that is busy, frequently ill, or does not perform adequately.

By relying solely on tape backup for IT disaster recovery management, then you really do need to review your IT disaster recovery strategy. These days – with the new complexities of the business, IT infrastructure and the increase in volumes of data being created you really do have to ask yourself if your existing IT disaster recovery services are enough to restore your data rapidly enough so that you can continue to trade and operate.

Research has shown that 50% of companies that lose critical data for more than 10 days never recover to the profit position they were carrying at the time of the loss, 43% of companies experiencing a data loss never reopen, and 29% of the remaining companies close within two years of the loss occurring.

If you can’t afford to take IT disaster recovery failure risks with your corporate data, then you might want to consider other IT disaster recovery services apart from your existing and perhaps outdated or unreliable strategy.

Tape has been traditional and stead fast solution for physical disaster recovery for years and for that we need to be eternally grateful. But the reality is that tape just does not make the grade anymore and many companies are fast realizing that tape cannot fit in with their long term IT disaster recovery plan.

Although the cost of magnetic tape per megabyte means that will be used for many years to come, improved IT disaster recovery software and technology is eroding the dominance of tape across the world, for day-to-day backup and recovery tasks.

IT Disaster Recovery And The Busy IT Department

Backup and recovery of data continues to be a critical component of business operations for any successful company.

Nowadays as part of a company’s broader risk management plan, IT managers are also delivering upon an IT disaster recovery plan so that the company’s data can be preserved and protected in the event of an IT disaster recovery failure or unplanned onsite emergency.

Physical data recovery is critical for business in today’s marketplace because quite literally so many things can go wrong.

Any number of reasons can cause the need for physical data recovery including ever increasing data loads, nonexistent backup and recovery plans at the user end, increasing and limitless network traffic, poor server performance, inefficient or even inadequate storage hardware, and poor or non existent backup procedures.

It is any wonder then that IT departments everywhere are struggling to cope with the day to day burden of managing IT disaster recovery services inline with everything else they are expected to manage.

These days the role of the IT department is challenged. This is because the job of managing an IT disaster recovery solution can be so demanding. Data type may vary dramatically (such as e-mail, databases, multimedia and graphics) and data may serve one or multiple related applications. Data also exists under differing degrees of confidentiality, such as company financial information, employee records or customer transactions.

Data can also be generated using any number of different programs and applications and platforms. Each program, application and platform needs to have its own IT disaster recovery plan, to ensure that the company can function in the event of a crisis.

In order for an IT department to better manage the varied and in some cases disparate backup and recovery needs and requirements of their company, the IT department needs to conduct IT contingency planning.

To do this they need to prepare an IT disaster recovery whitepaper that involves assess the needs of the company and determining what sort of infrastructure is needed to cater for a comprehensive and reliable process. Only then, can the IT department create an IT disaster recovery business case that will convince management that the purchase the hardware and software is in fact required to implement an effective IT disaster recovery plan.

As part of the IT department’s assessment, they also need to take note of the user’s needs today and in the future, and what IT disaster recovery services are already in place, if any. This is particularly important if the business has any kind of expansion plans.

The kinds of things that should be evaluated included in an IT disaster recovery report include:-
· Is it possible to consolidate existing hardware?

· Is it possible to use currently underutilized or unallocated storage space?

· Which systems are full and fill up quickly and which systems are underutilized and can be used as back up storage space?

· Is remote IT disaster recovery management support a possibility?

· Can end users take some responsibility for backup and recovery or should it all be centralized at the server end?

Backup and Recovery Plans: An Introduction

These days most companies secure their data by regularly backing it up onto tape and storing it externally – either at the owners place of residence or in a safety deposit box at the bank. They follow a DIY IT disaster recovery plan to preserve their data in the event that a system failure or interruption occurs during day to day operations.

A back up and recovery plan allows them to minimize data loss and interruption to customers.

Some companies however, have taken this IT contingency planning one step further, by enhancing their backup and recovery strategy using expensive disk arrays and mirroring. Some companies feel that by implementing more comprehensive and advanced IT disaster recovery software at the problem they can still manage the processes in house and it will work out just as effective, but still works out more cost effective than engaging external IT disaster recovery vendors.

But at the end of the day, no matter how you look at it; whether it is an earthquake, a flood, a blackout or a hard disk failure that gets you, IT disaster recovery services are always helpful – there is simply no doubt about it.

Add to this the risk that the data loss might be as a result of human or software error (which studies show, account for approximately 40% of all IT related disasters), then all your IT Officer needs to do is grab the most recent back up and restore the system.

Fingers crossed this would do the trick. While you can’t rely on IT contingency planning for everything, you have to hope that the IT disaster recovery solution you put in place will get you most of the way there.

If your IT infrastructure fails, you do need to know that sometimes your IT disaster recovery management tools may prove insufficient, for example, the back up does not complete, the back up tape you have does not include the most recent data or the tapes are unable to accessed when required.

What ever the reason, things can and do, go wrong with every DIY back up system. So, by conducting and indeed relying on traditional tape or disk backups that are processed in house, you need to understand that you could well be placing your business in jeopardy. If nothing else, do your homework and ensure that any IT disaster recovery plan you implement, provides you with the greatest level of security possible.

If in doubt talk to some local IT disaster recovery vendors and see what IT disaster recovery solution they would recommend for your business.