Why Do We Need Backup and Disaster Recovery?

Having a backup and disaster recovery plan is crucial for any business. You do not want to be left vulnerable after a hack or a natural disaster. A backup is simply a copy of data you can use to restore a file if something happens to the original. When you create a solid data backup plan, you are protecting against most incidents that can jeopardize data integrity. This includes a crashed hard drive, data theft, a software bug, losing a device, accidental deletion, or database corruption.

Disaster recovery is a step-by-step plan for quickly regaining the use of apps and IT resources after an incident. It is important to set up a plan of action to combat these instances where you may be losing valuable data or other important information. At MSEDP, we have an IT staff that can help protect your data in the first place and set up a plan of action to ensure you are not left crippled after the incident. Having a backup is great, but backups alone are not enough to ensure business continuity. Only a robust disaster recovery plan can guarantee your company can continue operating in case of a disaster.

Let's take a look at some of the main reasons why businesses may need to invest in backup and disaster recovery.

Avoid Costly Downtime

Downtime happens when apps and data become unavailable to end users. When you suffer any sort of downtime, the effects of it will be felt across the entire company. Employees cannot do their jobs, transactions cannot go through, revenue comes to a halt. And in the end, the customers will likely go elsewhere for what they need. Consequences that no business wants to have at any point as the price of downtime grows each year due to rising expenses.

Disaster recovery planning is the recipe for preventing high amounts of unplanned downtime and thus keeping your business operations running smoothly. The overall ability to switch operations to a secondary set of IT resources means you can keep services online during a disaster and avoid significant downtimes even if the primary data center is down. Minimizing downtime is the overall goal of our IT services, which is why we offer an all-inclusive package. From backup and disaster recovery to cloud computing, our IT services do an excellent job of lowering the risk of downtime, while speeding up the recovery process in case of a disaster. Keeping your business up and running at peak performance is our only goal.

Control Damage in Times of Crisis

When disaster strikes, backup and disaster recovery systems will enable a company to control the extent of the damage due to the safeguards in place. Here are some common examples of these situations when damage control in times of crisis is necessary.

• With a proper disaster recovery plan in place, it stops the ransomware attacker from spreading its malicious software to new devices. All while backups will ensure the encrypted data is fully restored.
• If a company fires an employee and that employee is angry and decides to delete files out of spite, then having a backup strategy enables you to fully restore any data that was deleted.
• A disaster recovery plan leads to smarter decisions on where to house the servers in case of a natural disaster, as well as offloading data to a secure offsite facility.
• If you do lose some infrastructure to a disaster, like a fire, then all of the data can be quickly restored on lost devices from a cloud backup.
• A backup failover site in a different region can keep your business in operation if the primary data center is in the middle of power outage.
• When a cyber attacker makes their way into your network, our disaster recovery plan will ensure there is a swift response that will limit any later movement and control what gets impacted. Thus, lowering the overall spread of the attack.

Prepare for Cyber Threats

Every business should take a proactive approach to cybersecurity, which includes firewalls, intrusion detection systems and more. But it is unwise to simply assume your business is safe. Preparing a response plan for a successful cyberattack is as vital as setting up any potential prevention measures. When you have a correct disaster and recovery plan, it makes sure the team knows how to quickly identify types of threats. This plan also allows for a prompt response to each different threat and ensures there is a follow through on the process of removing the attacker from the network. On the other hand, backups mitigate data loss and ensure you can recover an attack without suffering long-term problems.

Prevent Permanent Data Loss

If someone or something deletes a file that has no backup, then that data is gone forever. Which can cause a lot of stress and anxiety. There are many ways someone can lose a piece of data. Here are some of the common ways to lose data:

• cyber attack
• data corruption
• deletion (either accidental or malicious)
• physical damage to a storage unit
• hardware failure

Having proper backup enables you to return the file to the last known point before the existence of the problem. This strategy does not protect your data from theft, but rather simply guarantees that you will never lose a valuable piece of files permanently. Which means you can be put at ease knowing your data and work can be safely restored.

Lower the Impact of Human Error

Everyone makes mistakes. Employees will forget to save changes. They will type in incorrect dates. Some will accidentally delete an important file. And many will simply press the wrong button at one time or another. However, a continuous backup system ensures that your workforce does not accidentally lose data. On top of that, a disaster and recovery plan lowers the chance of costly mistakes during the crucial phases of discovering and responding to a threat.

Protect Remote-First Teams

Since COVID, many businesses moved to remote work. Working remotely presents an array of great benefits to the company, but it also comes with some risks. Here are some ways having a backup and disaster recovery plan helps to protect your remote workforce and mitigate those risks.

• A home network is typically far less secure than its corporate counterpart.
• Out-of-office work means more chances for someone to lose a device that has access to sensitive data.
• The business has limited visibility into how an employee uses and protects the device.
• A personal device usually has weaker security.
• A remote worker uses a device for personal reasons, which creates a larger area for cyberattacks.

Remote work and those subsequent devices can easily lead to permanent data loss without a proper backup. By having a disaster and recovery plan, it ensures that the security team is quick to disable a lost device or wipe the data in order to prevent an outsider from accessing business information. Let MSEDP handle your remote workforce and keep them safe from threats, while ensuring a backup and disaster recovery plan is set.

Ensure Compliance

Some companies must have an always-on infrastructure in order to fully comply with government regulations, while other companies need regular data backups to comply with any local laws. In those cases, the lack of backup and disaster recovery plans may lead to severe penalties and legal expenses. When disaster strikes, businesses do not get an exception for regulations. Every business needs to maintain compliance even when issues arise. A solid backup and disaster recovery plan can ease the compliance burden. Here is how that works:

• Data backups will ensure that a business does not lose sensitive data due to data leaks or a breach in network, which is a requirement of most data regulations.
• It is easy to tailor a disaster and recovery plan to ensure emergency response prioritizes securing regulation0tied databases.
• Disaster and recovery planning requires a continuous review of all IT systems in order to stay up to date with current threats. By having regular reviews, there is a higher chance to spot failures to comply.

Protect Brand Reputation

Being known as a company that lost customer data in the past does not exactly help your business's outlook in the public. Once you lose the trust of current customers, they start to discourage others from using or working for the company. Also, unhappy users tend to leave negative comments about your business online, which gives your company a poor rating that can hurt your business for years to come. Ultimately, losing data leads to a loss in revenue. All because you did not have a backup and disaster recovery plan. Both business continuity and disaster recovery are crucial to the safety of a company.

Contact MSEDP For Disaster & Recovery Planning

Are you looking for a trusted IT team to safeguard your data with backup and disaster recovery planning? At MSEDP, we provide our IT clients with enterprise-level backup and disaster recovery solutions. No business is too large or too small for a professional backup and disaster system. Our premium solution can get your business up and running again in just minutes after an issue, rather than hours, days or even weeks if you are not properly set up. So please, get in touch with MSEDP today to learn more about our backup and disaster recovery planning. When you reach out, we can provide you with a free, no-obligation consultation to go over exactly what you need. Do not let a minor issue turn into a major one with the loss of your data.