Expecting the unexpected is impossible, but preparing for the unexpected is necessary. Organizations face the threat of data loss every day — and they can’t afford it. Whether it’s a result of human error, cyber threats, or a natural disaster, an hour of downtime costs:
- $8,000 for a small company
- $74,000 for a medium company
- $700,000 for a large enterprise (that’s nearly $11,600 per minute)
Building a strong data recovery plan is the key to preventing lost data and downtime that may result from these incidents. Here’s what you need to know about planning for recovery.
You Need a Plan that Adheres to Compliance Regulations
Your business model dictates your recovery plan. Whether you’re a government agency or a healthcare group, you’re well-aware of the stringent guidelines for protecting your (and others’) data. If you’re an independent organization, you may have your own internal compliance standards. Either way, your data recovery plan must adhere to your compliance policies.
The problem is, compliance is complicated on every level — and expensive. In fact, 88% of companies in 2019 spent over $1 million just on GDPR prep. The cost of compliance goes way down when working with a DRaaS provider that abides by stringent compliance policies themselves. At VENYU, we are regulated and audited externally across three major compliance standards, which gives our clients peace of mind that they’re passing the right regulations and putting the right recovery plan in place from the start.
Recovery: Bringing Data Back to Life
According to a 2019 LogicMonitor study, 96% of organizations have experienced at least one outage in the past three years, and 95% had experienced at least one brownout. These outages resulted in:
- Lost revenue
- Compliance failure
- Lost productivity
The same study determined that companies with frequent outages experienced 16 times higher costs than organizations with fewer such instances. That’s why it’s critical to plan for the worst, so you’re recovering at your best. Data recovery is reliability for the unpredictable, and it’s important to understand why backup, alone, isn’t enough.
Backup and Recovery Technology: Your Data Safety Net
When developing your data recovery plan, you may be tempted to stick to backup as your only defense. But backup is virtually useless without recovery. Why? Because although the two are very different, they serve equally crucial parts of protecting your data.
Data backup/protection most often refers to files stored on a secure device, while disaster recovery (DR) refers to restoring IT infrastructure to operation after a disruption. Since backed-up data is of little use if there is no system in place to use it, DR steps in to fill the gap.
Most DR plans back up data to multiple locations, such as the cloud, on servers, on-premises, and remotely. The location will affect certain performance metrics, including failover and failback times, and how quickly backed up files can be recalled.
Cloud Computing: Your Data, More Places
Cloud computing is a convenient, strong aspect of data recovery. If data is lost, the cloud can serve as one of the best backup locations. It tends to be the safest, most versatile solution, especially for virtual environments. By using the cloud, you’re building resiliency and enabling scalability — especially in the environment we’ve created at VENYU. We run a scalable, cloud-based data center infrastructure and environment, removing the need to procure, manage, and set up systems.
As a part of this defense, we prioritize setting up a retention policy, where data can be recovered in full as it existed at a specific period in time. With cloud computing as part of your recovery strategy, you reduce your security and compliance risk and benefit from cost savings, lower total cost of ownership, and create a faster time to value.
Colocation: Don’t Let Your Data Center Get You Down
When servers go down, production stops, customers cannot buy, and systems must be reset, all of which incur an expense. Unfortunately, these are risks in a commercial-grade data center, and the features needed to avoid those risks cost exponentially more to add on separately.
Some businesses value their onsite data centers for the ease of access, the comfort of having infrastructure in-house, and the convenience of not having to move infrastructure. However, there are some often overlooked risks involved with onsite data centers to consider:
- Multi-tenant hazards: crowded office buildings are some of the worst places for data centers.
- Utilities infrastructure: often, what is going on outside an onsite data center is more dangerous than what is inside.
- Security threats: standard office buildings are not built for commercial-grade data security.
- Limited scalability: although not an immediate threat to data centers, space, and equipment constraints are roadblocks to growth.
As part of your recovery plan, move your systems to a hardened facility where you know the lights are always on, and the internet is always available. Colocation hosting, like ours at VENYU, is a flexible solution giving organizations the space, connectivity, and security they need for their servers.
Work with Experts Who Have Your Best Interest in Mind
It’s one thing to have a backup and recovery plan, but it’s another when you’re not sure how to test it or monitor and manage it. By leveraging economies of scale and partnering with a DRaaS provider, you can use existing infrastructure, capital, and expertise to save money and make sure a small problem doesn’t become a big one.
At VENYU, we manage all server patching, monitoring, and backup services 24/7/365, so you can focus on your business. Because you shouldn’t have to worry about your data when we’re here to do that for you.
Let’s dedicate some time to developing a solid data backup and disaster recovery plan; it’ll be worth it in the long run.
