Snow totals reached 22-35 inches west, north, and northwest of the Beltway in Washington D.C., 18-24 inches inside the Beltway, and 10-20 inches south and southeast of the Beltway. Snowzilla blanketed the Eastern United States in early 2016, resulting in a blizzard that ranked as the snowiest on record for Baltimore and fourth snowiest on record in Washington D.C.
Sudden natural disasters like early 2016’s eastern snow storm that left 85 million Americans either stranded on highways, without power, or unable to leave their homes serves as a reminder that we must be ready before calamity strikes. Today’s unpredictable winter weather possesses many potential problems to businesses that aren’t prepared. Regardless of your business’s locations, it is important to have a comprehensive disaster recovery plan in place so that in the event of a disaster, you can effectively and efficiently respond.
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Whether you have a backup and disaster recovery plan in place or not, it is important to ask yourself the following questions. If your business lost access to data, what would you do? How long would it take or cost to recover from a loss? Could your business survive if you lost access to your server?
Most businesses have some form of a backup solution in place, but many can’t recover quickly when disaster, such as data loss and power outages, strikes. For some, one day without server access can shut down the business for good.
When developing a disaster recovery plan it is important to start by preparing for the worst case scenario and working down rather than starting with something more routine and working up. That way, when a minor situation arises, it will be easy to separate what you need from your large plan to resolve the issue.
Having a telecommuting plan in place and having critical business data accessible to pertinent parties will keep your business from losing in revenue and productivity in the event of winter weather. If travel restrictions arise, your employees will need access to important business information from remote locations. Utilizing services like the cloud and file sync and share to host data will allow key employees access to information needed to do their jobs. This can make the difference between a zero productivity day and a spike in productivity because employees are empowered and prepared to work from home.
Backups can save your business from complete data loss in the event of long-term outages or damage to your physical office. Off-site backups are often stored in multiple locations. This accounts for the possibility of widespread outages. By backing up your data in multiple locations, you can have your business up and running in an alternate location if necessary.
Disaster recovery plans are put in place to deal with scenarios that could derail the workday quickly and can to be implemented immediately. Whether you have a backup and disaster recovery plan in place or not, it is important to ask yourself the following questions:
- If your business lost access to data, what would you do?
- How long would it take or cost to recover from a loss?
- Could your business survive if you lost access to your server?
- Does everyone in your company know their responsibilities during a disaster?
- Does your disaster recovery plan contain the contact information of everyone involved in the process?
- Can you access the communication systems most vital to continue to run your business?
- Can you effectively communicate the details of the situation to employees, clients, vendors, etc.?
- Can you access the information and information systems most vital to continue running the business during a disaster?
If you answered no to any of the questions above, it’s time to rethink your backup and disaster recovery plans. There are many companies and experts who are ready to help your business develop and implement backup and disaster recovery plans to keep your business up and running.
The IT experts at Prosource are here to help your business proactively plan for unforeseen disasters. To learn more about backup and disaster recovery from Prosource call 888.698.0763 to speak directly with an expert.