The devastation caused by Cyclone Phailin in India has understandably led several businesses to take another look at how their data is stored, and assess the DR strategies they have in place should any natural disaster affect their data's security. Kevin Linsell, head of service development at Adapt comments on the need for UK businesses to be prepared, should disaster strike:
"Recent natural disasters reiterate the need for a disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity (BC) plan wherever in the world your business is operating. Environmental factors are one of the major issues that should be brought into consideration when forming a DR and BC plan. Businesses should be aware of the weather and the rapid changing circumstances that storms or unexpected weather fronts can bring.
The key to avoiding data disaster is having a well thought-out recovery plan in place. This should involve more than one geographical location: having IT systems backed up in a secondary environment adds resilience if the first environment experiences an outage or is subject to natural disaster. Any plan also needs to be flexible to allow for changing circumstances. Working with an MSP to manage and implement your disaster recovery strategy means that your business should benefit from a strategy designed specifically with your business needs in mind as well as providing access to the most recent technology upgrades and fastest recovery systems available. Last but not least, any DR strategy needs to be regularly tested. This is the best way of ensuring that when disaster hits, mission critical data is protected and your business can continue its operations with minimal downtime."