Data disasters usually follow Murphy’s law and mostly occur without any warning. Your server could crash or you could have a ransomware attack, leading to your systems going down and you losing data. Sometimes, there’s little you can do to prevent these attacks, but having a recovery plan is never a bad idea.
Too many UK businesses don’t understand the importance of a disaster recovery plan for business continuity until it’s too late. A report published by Cockroach Labs revealed that 100% of the 1,000 senior technology executives who were interviewed reported outage-related revenue loss in the past year.
To minimise the impact of a data disaster, you need a trusted partner like BlackBox Hosting, who can help you implement a recovery plan that will get your business on track with minimal downtime.
But before you can implement an effective recovery plan, you need to understand data disasters and how expensive they can be for your organisation. Here’s everything you need to know.
What are Data Disasters?
In IT speak, a data disaster is any problem that keeps you from accessing your company’s data or systems. Whilst most people think natural disasters are a leading cause of data loss, they only account for 5% of data disasters. Much more commonly, they are the result of cyberattacks, hardware failures, software corruption, cloud data breaches, insider threats, or utility failures.
Perhaps most shockingly of all, 69% of organisations reported human error as the leading cause of downtime.
Data disasters can hamper your customers’ experience and affect their trust and perception of your business. To prevent this from happening, you’ll need to take stringent measures and set up protocols to minimise the likelihood of these disasters occurring.
Your business is at a serious risk of data loss if you don’t have a recovery plan in place. Let’s explore the cost of downtime in more detail.
The Cost of Downtime and the Importance of a Recovery Plan
Downtime costs can quickly add up due to lost sales, delayed projects, or reputational damage. While it’s important for many businesses to focus on prevention, it’s common be unprepared for the ‘what if.’ That’s why a disaster recovery plan for business continuity is essential.
Two terms matter most when building your Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP):
1. RTO (Recovery Time Objective): Your plan needs to highlight the timeframe within which all your systems need to be restored. It has to be a realistic timeframe that doesn’t cause significant loss while also being efficient.
2. RPO (Recovery Point Objective): Human error can lead to backups being missed or becoming corrupted over time. You need to be clear on how much data your company can afford to lose and arrange for periodic backups accordingly.
If you don’t have a DRP, decisions are often made in the moment that lack clarity, and lead to more problems in the future. Contact BlackBox Hosting today to discuss how our expert team can help you set up your DRP strategy.
Implementing Effective Disaster Recovery Strategies for Business Continuity
A good disaster recovery plan for business continuity is backed by tools and technologies that actually make fast recovery possible. Here are some of the most effective DRP strategies for business continuity.
1. Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)
A DRaaS solution will replicate your business-critical systems to a secure cloud environment. In the event of a failure, your systems can be brought online from the backup location within minutes. This solution is ideal for companies that don’t have the infrastructure to maintain a secondary data centre.
2. Cloud-based Backups and Replication
A cloud-based backup with a reputable managed provider will give you flexibility, speed, and resilience. It’s important your provider continues to test systems regularly, as 58% of amateur backups are prone to fail during recovery.
3. Immutable Backups
Ransomware attackers have become smarter, with about 94% of them targeting backup systems. Immutable backups that can’t be altered or deleted by even administrators will give you a clean and uncompromised recovery point in case anything goes wrong.
4. AI-Driven Automation
Many organisations are now investing in AI to help with disaster recovery for businesses, as well as improving threat detection and automating a lot of failover processes. This will help you reduce recovery time and minimise your downtime.
5. Tailored Recovery for Your Business Size
The disaster recovery system you choose has to be right for the size of your business. A small business often needs fast and affordable solutions with minimal internal IT support. A mid-sized business needs flexible and scalable recovery environments, while a large enterprise will require advanced SLAs, compliance-ready platforms, and continuous replication.
BlackBox Hosting Helps You with a Strong Recovery System
You shouldn’t underestimate the risk of downtime, regardless of your business size. Reports have revealed that 34% of businesses take more than a month to recover from ransomware attacks, and about 45% of companies experience permanent data loss.
To experience disaster recovery benefits, including minimising downtime, protecting your data, and saving you money in the long run, you need an experienced partner like BlackBox Hosting. We understand the risks and provide a tailored, tested solution that guides you through every stage of your disaster recovery strategy.
BlackBox Hosting’s disaster recovery for businesses solution includes UK-based DRaaS, cloud-based replication, RTO and RPO validation, expert support, and SLA-backed uptime guarantees.
Call us on +44(0)203 740 7840l to partner with us today and leverage the power of our BaaS and DRaaS solutions.
