As more companies shift to remote work, business leaders have new IT priorities to contend with. They want to ensure home computing environments are secure, content is accessible to mobile employees, and their teams remain connected and productive. But perhaps the greatest challenge, and priority, is maintaining business continuity. Remote workforces are gaining increased attention from cyber criminals, and a mix of rapidly-deployed company and personal devices leave corporate networks vulnerable to data theft, loss, or corruption. To mitigate these threats, more business leaders are focusing on their business continuity and disaster recovery planning, and adapting existing policies to meet emerging needs.
Like Siemens’ CEO Joe Kaeser mentioned while speaking at a Stockholm technology forum back in 2018:
“Data is the oil, some say the gold, of the 21st century – the raw material that our economies, societies and democracies are increasingly being built on.”
How Do We Mitigate Risk To Data?
Cybersecurity crimes and data breaches are on the rise, and it’s estimated that these crimes will cost $10.5 trillion annually by 2025. Small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are more likely to fall victim; oftentimes, SMBs don’t think they are large enough to be targets and lack the proper technology and processes to protect their network.
Data takes many forms today, and while all data is not built equal, all data is at risk. First, there is the risk the data will be compromised deliberately. It’s no secret that malware attacks, ransomware, employee errors and criminal hackers seek to monetize data to our detriment.
Second, data is at risk simply by existing. A negligent, yet a committed employee could accidentally leak customer data over an email. A backup might fail to restore. Or a hurricane might wreak havoc on the data centers.
Today, IT leaders must acknowledge the risk to data and understand the consequences if that risk is actualized.
What happens when our sales team no longer has access to client’s data?
How do our teams provide services without leveraging core applications?
How long can an employee go without access to critical information and systems?
Why do we need Disaster Recovery Planning?
A DRP is an integral part of a business continuity plan (BCP). It is applied to the aspects of an organization that depend on a functioning IT infrastructure. It aims to help an organization address data loss and recover system functionality so that it can perform in the aftermath of an incident, even if it operates at a minimal level.
That’s why it is essential to identify, prioritize, and prepare for the most prominent risks you are likely to face. By determining what events would most significantly impact your organization and the likelihood of those events, you can substantially reduce your risk.
What is Disaster Recovery As A Service (DRaaS)?
Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) is the utilization of a cloud native service or a 3rd party servicer to backup vital data and applications to the cloud and provide system failover to a secondary infrastructure in the event of natural and digital disasters. Disasters such as hardware failure, a power outage, issues with fiber connection, hurricanes, tornadoes, and even cyber-attacks have the ability to inhibit a company’s ability to operate and serve customers.
DRaaS focuses on a short recovery point objective. This means that the data restored will be as close to its “current” state possible. Typical recovery time objectives are within “4” hours and will bring up machines geographically located in a different location.
Thus, a high-performing disaster recovery solution is integral to any modern IT strategy. DRaaS can provide peace of mind to an organization, its employees and customers.
Why Use DRaaS?
DRaaS provides the needed resilience to an organization by providing continuous mirroring of critical infrastructure and data to a high-availability cloud service, so that recovery of the business is possible within very few minutes of an outage.
It is never a one-and-done plan.
DR testing is a crucial part of MSP. Testing business continuity/ disaster recovery plans increases clients capacity to respond to and recover from different incidents, regardless of whether it is a natural disaster, a human-made disaster, or even a network breakdown.
At Squareshift, we help all businesses test their systems constantly for any faults, possible vulnerabilities and backup checks. Testing is a natural part of the life cycle for many technology efforts; software, processes, and this doesn't discount Disaster Recovery. Hence, it is a unique aspect to a business as it doesn't occur often, however when disaster hits we need to know that our DR plans will work.
That’s part of the reason why we use the word “Plan”. Proper disaster recovery is a feedback loop, where testing and current data are input into the Plan to improve recovery options. Without proper testing and feedback, Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) is of no value.
DRaaS With SquareShift
Our DR experts have been in this business for over 2 decades, and are well aware of the intricate crossover between disaster recovery, infrastructure, and cybersecurity. SquareShift team will work to determine RTOs and RPOs, ensure we have a comprehensive backup and contingency plan in place, and then perform the implementation – real time testing – disaster recovery planning so that clients can feel confident that when disaster strikes, we’re fully ready.