This current outbreak of COVID-19 Coronavirus will have made many companies aware of just how important it is to have effective disaster recovery planning in place.
The impact of this outbreak and its rapid expansion is a demonstration of what can happen unexpectedly, and we will likely see the effects of this for a considerable amount of time to come.
Being prepared is half the battle, and it's up to you to make sure that you are not just prepared but that your company will thrive.
What is Disaster Recovery?
Disaster Recovery, or DR for short, is a plan which will be enacted should the unexpected happen.
So if, for example, your office went on fire, or there was a flood, you would be able to enact your DR plan and move to your backup site.
This allows for greatly reduced disruption to both your business and your customers.
There are certain areas that you will want your Disaster Recovery Plan to cover, here's a list of some:
- Identify key IT assets - software and hardware.
- Identify key personnel and provide contact details for them.
- How to access business-critical data remotely.
- Communication flow when off-site.
That is just a brief overview, we will expand on the theories and concepts below.
Identify key IT assets
This is a vital part of any Disaster Recovery plan as it will identify the tools your business needs to continue operating during times of crisis.
Key IT assets may include both hardware and software, some examples being:
Hardware
- PCs / Laptops
- Physical phones
- Printer(s)
- Mobile internet dongle
Software
- Email client such as Microsft Outlook
- Office software like Word, Excel, etc.
- CRM or database system
- Other proprietary software
It may seem obvious, but the whole concept behind DR is that your company can hit the ground running in case of an emergency.
As such, the ability to perform the day to day routine as close to normal is what we are aiming for.
Key personnel
You will need to identify which staff members are mission-critical to the core functions of your business.
Basically, these will be the members of staff whose duties and responsibilities will allow your businesses to seamlessly provide service to customers and clients during the emergency period.
Key personnel will not necessarily be high-end management or the like, although it's important that management are kept in the loop during the process.
The key personnel will generally be staff who are at coal face of day to day business operations. Remember that Disaster Recovery is about being a bridging action to make sure your business doesn't grind to a halt in a time of crisis.
As such, you'll want to make sure you have even a limited number of staff available who would be dealing directly with customers or their queries.
You will need some senior staff members to hand also as their additional experience will be beneficial in keeping the ship righted, so to speak during a time of potential panic.
Access to critical data remotely
This is extremely important, and depending on the type of business you operate, it may prove to be vital.
In our recent article on working from home during this Coronavirus pandemic, we showed the importance of able to access work-related data remotely.
Should you find yourself in a scenario where you need to implement your DR Plan, then having the ability to access your data will be key.
In order to streamline the operations of your company during this time, you will need to be able to access your CRM and data stores while working from your Disaster Recovery site.
One solution to this requirement is to have cloud-based backups of your files. These can be restored to your DR site and can aid in minimizing downtime for your company.
As the current COVID-19 restrictions have shown, quite a lot can be done while working from home. However, in the case of flooding or fire at your place of business then this may not be possible.
This is another reason why having data stored in the cloud can greatly decrease the disruption to your business flow during a time of crisis.
With the Coronavirus situation that has unfolded around us all in recent times, it's very likely that at least some of your colleagues are working from home.
It would be highly beneficial for you to take notes on the strengths and weaknesses of what is and is not working for your staff as they operate remotely.
These notes and ideas can be factored into your DR Plan and will help streamline its effectiveness.
Communications
This is another extremely important component of your Disaster Recovery plan as it's quite possible staff will be working in different locations during the disaster.
On your disaster recovery backup site, it will be vital that you have very good broadband connection, especially if you will be accessing online data more than normal.
Some things you may want to factor in:
Phone system
What type of phone system do you have? If you are using VOIP then it will make portability a lot easier, to the point where you can seamlessly route your office number to your mobile phone.
If you are using a more traditional PBX, then you'll want to have as part of your DR plan a contingency whereby your phone provider can route calling over to your DR backup site.
Shared access to files
As mentioned previously, your staff may be spread out over several locations, if this is the case then it's important that they can jointly access required files.
Usually, it would be the case that staff would access the files on the local office server, however, in this scenario, they will be accessed from several remote locations at once.
One of the better solutions for this is Microsoft OneDrive as it integrates nicely into the Office 365 platform and allows many users to access the same files concurrently.
Another solution of note for this is Google Drive, however it generally works better if you are using the Gmail system.
Conclusion
So as you can see, having an effective Disaster Recovery Plan in place is of extreme importance to your business.
The current situation we find ourselves in at the moment should help paint the picture for you of just how important it is.
Even with the best will in the world, you can never fully plan for a fire breaking out at your place of business or the office getting flooded.
That's why it's good to do the leg work and planning now so that should the need arise, your business will succeed while those who don't plan ahead will fail.
iPing provides managed services and IT services. We can help provide you with an overview of your current setup and advise you on the best course of action to take regarding getting your own Disaster Recovery Plan put in place.
So, if you need some help with the above please contact us or give us a call on 01 5241350.