Your business has a disaster recovery (DR) plan ready in place to defend the company’s network data and sensitive information and guarantee business continuity. Even so, the following attributes might still be overlooked in the DR planning – it’s best to address them once and for all.
1. Updates
Any major changes to business infrastructure, such as software updates, should trigger a revision or update process in the company’s disaster recovery plan.
All actions included in the DR policy are dependant on the technologies and systems in use at the moment of planning. Make sure your DR is updated accordingly if you have invested in new technology or upgraded your software in the meantime.
Also, bear in mind that rapid shift in technology and innovations may call for a complete disaster recovery overhaul. Keep abreast with advances in cloud computing, predictive algorithms, and virtualisation that offer new solutions to IT systems recovery.
2. On-site Encryption and Compression
A disaster recovery strategy should include on-site encryption to protect your sensitive data. On-site means that data is encrypted using private encryption key on the company’s site before being transferred off-site.
Another potentially overlooked factor is the compression of large data, e.g. images, before being stored off-site on the alternative infrastructure. On-site encryption and compression are important in managing data security and storage capabilities and trimming down costs.
3. Regular On-demand Testing
Having a disaster recovery system is not enough. The recovery plan needs to be tested and reinforced wherever necessary. Businesses should enforce regular practice drills to test recovery failover and crisis response.
A DR plan is, put simply, ineffective without regular testing, which is recommended at least on a quarterly basis. Testing is also an ideal tool to uncover potential misgivings.
Are you protected against the growing number of threats to business continuity?
