FEATURE: DISASTER RECOVERY
“94% of
companies
suffering from
a catastrophic
data loss do not
survive.”
What are the main ways a company
can find itself losing its data?
There are several reasons for data loss
and they come in the form of human
error, natural disasters, cyber-attacks,
power loss, and malfunctioning of
hardware or software.
• Cyber Attacks: According to a recent
report by Gemalto, for the first half of
the year 2016, 974 publicly disclosed
data breaches took place in the
first half of 2016, which led to the
successful theft or loss of 554 million
data records.
• Hardware or System Malfunctions:
According to a survey of data loss’s
causes, more than two-fifth of users
lose data because of hardware or
system malfunctions. It is the most
common cause of data loss.
• Human errors: Another common
cause for data loss manifests itself in
the form of clicking on the delete or
format unintentionally or even the
damage caused by physical damage
by dropping the device.
• Computer Viruses and Malware:
The risks involved in damage and
loss of information at the current
moment is also very high with
the increasing number of virus,
malware and ransomware attacks.
This is applicable not just in larger
enterprises, but also in smaller
organisations. This can spread rapidly
while causing temporary or complete
damage to the business data.
• Natural Disasters: One of the most
uncontrollable causes of data loss
include earthquakes, fires, floods,
etc. However according to a survey,
natural disasters account for only 3%
of data loss.
44
INTELLIGENTCIO
Sachin Bhardwaj, director
of marketing and business
development for eHosting DataFort
What is the best way to plan for
Disaster Recovery?
A Disaster Recovery plan is a tabulated,
organised and methodical approach
with detailed instructions and
preconceived responses to mediate
accidental and unexpected disruptions.
It is a comprehensive plan that
includes anticipatory precautions,
refined and scenario based reactions,
reserve resources and redundancies
so that the impact of a disaster can
be contained and the enterprise can
sustain essential operations as well as
resume critical functions rapidly and
with relative ease.
“Seven out of
10 small firms
that experience
a major data
loss go out of
business within
a year.”
7. Don’t neglect laptops as according
to Gartner, two-thirds of corporate
data lives outside the data centre.
8. Maintain three copies of the data,
stored on two different kinds of
media, with one of them stored
offsite.
9. Keep backups off site, in a safe
location.
10. Store data in a secure cloud.
We also suggest working with a trusted
services provider to disaster proof
data and IT systems. This will not only
ensure high availability of the data
and IT infrastructure, but will also let
organisations focus on core activities
that require their attention the most.
A few steps to get started:
1. Conduct a data assessment to better
prioritise what data you need to
have on hand after a disaster and
who will need to have access to it.
2. Define an acceptable recovery time
objective, recovery point objective
and choose the right storage media.
3. Create a Disaster Recovery plan and
test it.
4. Make sure sensitive data is properly
encrypted.
5. Regularly back-up and snapshot
data.
6. Make sure critical applications are
always accessible.
What does a Managed Disaster
Recovery Service Programme cover?
A managed disaster recovery service will
cover the following:
• RPO and RTO Service Level
Agreements.
• Running a Disaster Recovery (DR)
runbook for bringing up the DR
environment.
• Making sure all systems and
applications are up and running.
• Conducting frequent DR drills and
rectifying issues that may arise.
• Liaising with vendors for support of
various technologies in place.
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