Protect Your Data - 2nd Quarter 2008

After a catastrophic data loss, 50% of businesses never re-open. 90% close within two years. Could this happen to you?

Those statistics are both shocking and frightening. However, a catastrophic data loss should be a temporary issue with little or no lasting effects. The following article is a plea for you to create AND IMPLEMENT a disaster recovery plan.

In other news:
Have you ever calculated how much spam is costing your business? Here is an article I wrote for the Professional Door Dealer publication that does just that. The calculation is easy to follow and the results are surprising. The article concludes with some simple things you can do to reduce your spam costs.

Protect Your Data

Things I should do to prevent future disaster:

• Brush and floss after every meal
• Change the oil in my car every 3,000 miles
• Lower my cholesterol
• Change the air conditioning filters every month

All of these are important for sure, however, allow me to add one more.

• Backup my digital information

Ignore this one and you may end up making a phone call like this:

Need I say more?

Where is my digital information?

• Computer hard drives
• Flash/thumb drives
• CDs/DVDs
• Cell phones (SIM cards)
• Fax machine address book
• GPS address book
• DVR movies
• Digital camera
• MP3 Players (iPod)
• Domain names
• Websites
• Usernames/passwords
• Employee’s equipment

Why protect it?

You must protect your digital information because it can disappear at any time and the result can be devastating. Consider the following two studies of what happens to businesses after a catastrophic data loss. And don’t kid yourself, this could be you.

University of Texas Study 43 % never re-open 94 % close within 2 years 6 % survive

Baroudi Bloor International Study 50 % never re-open 90 % close within 2 years 10 % survive

Top 5 Causes of Data Loss

According to Ontrack, the top 5 causes of data loss are:

1. Hardware or system malfunction (44%)
2. Human error (32%)
3. Software corruption (14%)
4. Viruses (7%)
5. Acts of God (3%)

Other causes: Theft, Loss, Damage, Lost encryption, Sabotage, Terrorism, Hackers, Seized (law enforcement)

Create a Plan

The tasks in your plan can be broken down into two different categories.

1. Prevention - Things you do to prevent a loss
2. Recovery - Things you do to recover from a loss

Prevention

Here is a list of topics that should be included on your prevention list. If any of these items are unfamiliar to you, then we recommend you consult an expert and make sure all of these items are covered.

Redundancy / RAID (mirrored)
Having redundant hardware can help prevent an outage

Hardware replacement schedule
Replacing old hardware before it fails is a good idea

Hardware security (physical)
Restricting access to critical machines lessens the chance of a problem

Training
Train employees to use the supplied preventative measures

Software, O/S updates (automatic)
Keeping software and operating systems updated reduces the chance of hackers gaining access

Anti-virus, anti-spyware
Viruses and spyware will slow down and sometimes destroy your information and should be stopped

Firewalls
A firewall is software that restricts network traffic and can keep out hackers

Power conditioning/battery backup
Use power conditioning and battery backups to help prevent power outage and damage from spikes

Fire suppression
Maintaining proper fire suppression can help prevent a disaster if a fire should break out

Recovery

These items should be considered in order to make sure you can recover if (when) your prevention methods fail.

Disaster Recovery Plan
Having a plan to quickly return your business to operational after a disaster is a must

Time to recover
Pick an acceptable down-time after a disaster and build a plan to meet that objective

Spare/re-tasked hardware
It is a good idea to keep spare hardware and/or hardware that you can re-task for critical functions

Replacement plans
You need to plan how you will replace critical hardware after a disaster

Backup data
Backing up your data makes recovery possible

Backup software and O/S
You need to either have all of the original installation disks for your software and operating systems or have them backed up

Redundant backups
When a disaster occurs, you do not want to be reliant on a single copy of all your important digital information

Legal Requirements
Some data, like financial data and emails, are required to be kept for a certain number of years

Disaster Recovery Planning & Maintenance

To the left is the process we recommend for creating and maintaining a plan. You first assess your current situation. Then you clearly define your objectives such as how long you can be without your computers in a worst case scenario. Then you design and implement a plan to meet those objectives.

Would you use a brand new parachute design that has not been field tested? Of course not. Neither should you use an untested disaster recovery plan. If you don’t test it, how will you know it will work when the time is critical?

Another important aspect of creating a disaster recovery plan is the regular maintenance, review, and testing cycle. This cycle must continue for the life of your company. Without it, your plan is useless.

Closing

I bet it would feel good to actually do all the things we should do. I just can’t comprehend having time to do that and get my grass cut. However, when it comes to backups, Clearbuilt does not take a chance and neither should you. Don’t become a statistic. Create and implement a disaster recovery plan right away!

Filed by nb on June 24th, 2008 under ClearPoint