Despite coming a long way since accidentally taping over family videos with music videos (sorry, mom), there is still significant danger in underestimating the depth needed in planning your disaster recovery strategy.

Disaster recovery relates to how well your business can not only bounce back from disasters but how your everyday efforts and work tie in to a more effective data strategy. They say the best defense is a good offense, and the same applies here. How are your security procedures creating a safety net regarding cyber risk, and how are your staff trained to spot problems before they arise?

Building a comprehensive data recovery strategy offers you long-term benefits for business continuity, or, simply put, how well your business can run in the event of a disaster. These can be minor breaches like a DDoS attack of your mobile app, which slows user experience and ups the chance of a data breach. A low level of business continuity could be reflected by how social media services that experience wholesale outages are mocked by competitors and users alike.

Luckily, you’re most likely aren’t in the business of big data. However, what you are looking for is a strategy to help align your everyday efforts with better security outcomes. For that, Managed Services Group can help.

Understanding Data Disasters

Data loss can occur for a number of reasons, and each of them must be mitigated by a different kind of protection strategy:

• Running out of backup space
• Outdated servers
• Cyberattacks
• Switching software without proper planning or migration
• Failing to renew subscriptions
• Poor cloud management
• Human error like accidental deletion and password loss

Think about each prevention, backup, and disaster recovery strategy like slices of swiss cheese. A single slice will have some holes in it—in this metaphor, these are gaps in the protocol that may allow threats through.

Put another slice of swiss cheese on top, and now you’ve got two layers of protection that cover a larger surface area! However, look closely, and you might discover that the holes between those two layers still permit threats through.

A robust disaster recovery strategy involves laying down enough slices to cover every hole to a greater or lesser degree. Planning this system is one thing, but learning to implement it in a user-friendly, cost-effective, and low-resource strategy is where managed service providers like MSG shine.

How Easy is Data Recovery?

The answer to this question once again comes back to how robust your initial strategies were in anticipating problems and creating buffers such as backups and external recoveries.

For instance, a corrupted hard drive (or one accidentally dunked in coffee) could be a significant problem unless you had a dedicated backup on cloud servers. An employee device that was stolen could prove to be a gaping hole in your security unless you had device management software that would allow you to manage passwords, permissions, and even wipe the device’s memory remotely. 

Here you can see the “cheese” model in action. One strategy (device management) doesn’t protect against the other (data loss), but together, they provide the tools necessary to maximize business continuity and offer a safer user and employee experience.

This blog is only the tip of safety considerations for better business continuity and disaster recovery. For an in-depth look (or a review of your current technology practices), please contact us for a free consultation. Together, we’re building safer, more profitable businesses navigating complicated times both in digital and physical environments.