It’s that time of year again – tornado season. For those who reside in ‘tornado alley,’ it’s the time of year when people prepare for the potentially devastating storms by securing their homes and valuables and prepping storm shelters for temporary shelter. For businesses, it’s no different. Rather than fearing the loss of sentimental personal items, however, they fear the loss of their most valuable asset: data. A tornado, of course, is just one example of the perils businesses face when it comes to data security.

Whether it’s a tornado, cybercrime, human error, or some other catastrophic event, you need to take a careful look at how your business is prepared to protect its data. As you evaluate backup and recovery solutions, there are a few factors you need to take into consideration. Let’s take a look.

All data is not equal. 

When you think about the various types of data you have in your business, it’s safe to say that some are more mission-critical than others. The loss of customer data and financial records is undoubtedly more impactful than losing memos or sales documents, but before you implement a backup and recovery solution, you need to catalog and prioritize that data. Once critical data has been identified, you need to determine the recovery time required for each set of data. In other words, how long can your business function without access to that information? For some data, it could be days, while others will be needed almost instantly.

Focus on location.

Now that you’ve got a good handle on your data, you need to decide where you are going to store this information. When choosing a backup and recovery provider, find out where your data will geographically reside. Off-site solutions can protect you from physical threats, but it’s essential to determine if the provider offers geographic diversity that ensures you can access your data if the primary data center is also impacted.

Test your plan. 

Backup and recovery plans are not ‘set it and forget it.’ When researching providers, be sure to ask them if they routinely test plans to identify any deficiencies in the recovery strategy. Developing a policy or testing backups ensures that your team, as well as the provider, know what to do in the event of an emergency. Just as schools and businesses conduct tornado and fire drills, you need to run tests often to assess how quickly your provider can fully recover your data and systems and develop strategies to improve the plan regularly.

Protecting your data from disasters, both natural and man-made, must be a top priority. If you’re challenged with implementing a backup and recovery plan but don’t know where to start, give LanYap Networks a call.