A disaster recovery solution can help businesses minimize the cost of downtime. It can prevent data loss, bolster business continuity stances, and protect against site failure.
DR solutions can include backups, disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS), and IT redundancy. The best options combine these solutions for maximum efficiency and cost reduction.
Preventative measures
As businesses become more reliant on information, the need for disaster recovery solutions grows. These plans include preventative measures to protect critical systems from disasters and backup procedures in case of data loss. These plans also include a timeline of how long an organization can handle downtime. They will also determine the frequency of backups and who should perform them.
Disaster recovery solutions will vary from business to business, but they should include preventative measures and backup solutions for priority files. These solutions will help minimize the cost of recovering from a disaster by reducing costs for backup maintenance and lowering the risk of data loss. They can also help reduce costs by minimizing downtime and improving employee productivity during a disaster. Keeping systems optimally maintained and incorporating innovative cybersecurity solutions will also cut costs. For example, switching to a cloud-based data storage solution will minimize the need for hardware and streamline IT processes. It can also help eliminate superfluous tools that increase the surface area for attacks.
Recovery time objective (RTO)
When it comes to disaster recovery solutions, the recovery time objective (RTO) is one of the most important metrics. It relates to how long the business can tolerate system downtime, and it’s critical for ensuring that the organization has a reliable backup solution. Creating a realistic RTO requires careful planning and analysis, and it should be balanced with financial implications and technology infrastructure capabilities.
Defining the RTO involves identifying critical systems, services, and data components and determining how quickly they need to be restored after a disaster or disruption occurs. It also involves conducting a business impact analysis and assessing potential vulnerabilities.
The RTO is defined by the business, and it’s usually set in terms of hours or days after a disaster. The recovery point objective (RPO) is a related metric that determines how much data can be lost before it impacts business operations. It’s important to understand the difference between these two metrics, as they have different consequences for your organization.
Recovery point objective (RPO)
A recovery point objective (RPO) is a predetermined amount of time during which data can be restored from a backup system in the event of an IT disaster. This value is an important part of a business continuity plan and defines how much data loss is acceptable. RPO is different from the recovery time objective, which is focused on reducing unplanned downtime to a minimum level.
The RPO value varies by industry and application, but it should be at least a few minutes’ worth of data. To achieve this goal, organizations should ensure that backups are conducted regularly. Ideally, backups should be stored in multiple locations to avoid data loss in the event of a disaster.
To reduce the risk of data loss, businesses can prioritize critical applications and data, perform regular disaster recovery testing, and monitor their performance. This will help them identify gaps in their backup processes and make improvements. It is also a good idea to review RPOs periodically, as they may change due to additional service provisions, staff changes, backup frequency, and data growth.
Post-disaster recovery
During the post-disaster recovery phase, communities work to restore operations, resources, and systems that were impacted by disaster. This can include repairing damages, providing public services such as water and electricity, and cleaning up debris. The goal is to return to a functional state as quickly as possible while minimizing data loss and downtime.
A good disaster recovery solution includes backup and replication technology to ensure business operations can continue after a disruption. It also supports a failover mechanism that transfers workloads to the backup site when needed.
Many DR solutions use cloud storage to reduce costs and enable scalability. They offer features such as a single global UI, non-disruptive testing, and reporting. They can even reduce the risk of a security breach by implementing data backup and disaster recovery processes with built-in security capabilities. Cohesity can help organizations meet their business continuity and disaster recovery goals with its fast, automated DR across apps and clouds.