RSMUS.comDisaster Recovery, Backups, and High Availability are terms that are thrown around in reference to a business’s ability to recover from any kind of outage. Most businesses take backups, others rotate them offsite, and a few can actually recover systems offsite. For several businesses, the thought of looking into disaster recovery is a daunting exercise that will consume too many resources to make the exercise worth it – but what if your primary system goes down? When does your business start to lose money? How much money is lost over that time? Does your business have control over the resources to actually recover if a system goes down?
When considering disaster recovery a few key questions can help you get started down the right path:
- How long can my systems be down before my business is impacted? This will help determine the Recovery Time Objective (RTO), or how soon do your systems need to be recovered
- How much information can my business afford to lose, and still be able to recover? This will help determine the Recovery Point Objective (RPO), or the maximum amount of information to be lost in the event of a disaster
- What are the key pieces of technology that enable your business? These pieces, (i.e. internet, WiFi, key applications), cause the largest impact to the business when down, and should be prioritized
Several businesses are taking some steps toward disaster recovery, but the efforts are not fully aligned to the business needs, and do not always cover all pieces of the businesses applications. Most companies back up the data, but do not have supporting infrastructure, connectivity, or end user services to support business needs.
RSM offers disaster recovery services, ranging from discovery and planning, to implementation of technology to protect company’s data and system availability.
