Top 5 disaster recovery tips

With catastrophic events like Hurricane Katrina and the southern California
wild fires affecting millions of Americans in recent years, it is no surprise
that business continuity is top of mind of Small and Mid-Sized Business (SMBs).
Without proper preparation and planning, a natural or man-made disaster can
ruin a business.

A basic, but documented disaster
recovery (DR) plan, with recent backups and a practiced staff, will work
better than a grandiose scheme that hasn't been tested or properly executed.
Yet, most DR plans fail because they lack a few simple elements. Below are the top
5 tips for protecting your data and ensuring business continuity in the face
of disaster.

Document, document, document!

Make sure that every element of your DR process is documented and ensure it
includes the locations of system and other critical disks and data. It is imperative
key staff members-within IT and other areas of the organization-are familiar
with these documented storage places.

One simple, but critical step is to store system passwords in at least two
separate secure locations. Only one of which should be in the same building
as your IT equipment and at least two staff members should have access to the
passwords.

Automate notification processes

Traditionally, one of the key challenges to executing a timely DR plan is the
delay in alerting IT staff to an outage, and subsequent problem diagnosis. This
delay can be reduced by establishing an automated system to notify critical
staff of a disaster by text, phone or email. Train your staff on the system
so they can perform basic DR/back-up tasks unsupervised. You may also be able
to do this through an arrangement with a third-party service provider.

Practice makes perfect…almost

Recent studies have shown that few companies actually test their DR plans on
a regular basis, and as a result, most companies have little faith that their
DR plans will work when needed.

Practice your DR plan on a quarterly basis, or more frequently. This will strengthen
your organization's skills and give you the confidence that your plan will work
in practice. It will also familiarize new staff with the procedure and ensure
your DR strategy is kept up to date by revealing any issues with new equipment
or software.

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