As we’ve just witnessed in the last three weeks, no one is completely protected from natural disasters. Hurricane Irene barreled up the east coast, an earthquake shook Virginia and was felt all the way up to Maine, and thousands of acres are burning in Texas.
Now is the time to protect your business – and all your business data – from damage and possible destruction.
In a recent survey by Symantec, 50% of the 1,288 responding small-medium sized businesses said they are not prepared for disaster at all.
Insurance claims will only cover the cost of physical products, which is only half the battle. They might replace your laptop or PC but what happens to the thousands of data files that were stored on the destroyed computer?
Here are 3 ways you can protect your business data from destruction:
1. Create a consistent backup plan. Make manual backup files on discs or tapes or hire a cloud-based company to do an offsite backup for you. The key is to make these backups consistently.
2. Keep the data secure – including backups. With identity theft so rampant, keeping this information safe is critical. Physical backups should be stored under lock and key in an offsite location and any cloud-based backup system should also be secure, with their own backup and security plan in place.
3. Test the backup and recovery plan often. Anytime there are new technological advances or you purchase any new technology, test and revamp your backup and recovery plans. You don’t want to find a glitch when you’re faced with a disaster.
Lastly, your employees – or at least their managers – should know where the data is being stored and how to retrieve it. That’s not to say everyone and their brother should have access to sensitive company data but leaving all the retrieval information in one person’s hands is equally as dangerous, especially if that person is unable to be in your office to perform the recovery.
This is just a quick glance at how you can protect your company’s data so you can be up and running again quickly after a natural disaster. Please consult your own IT expert to help you formulate a backup and recovery plan suitable for your company.
Consider it another form of insurance for your company.
