Backup and Business Continuity Protecting Your Organization When Disaster Strikes

Transcription

1 Backup and Business Continuity Protecting Your Organization When Disaster Strikes

2 Table of Contents Overview... 3 Introduction... 4 So What is a Disaster When it Comes to Business?... 5 Understanding Data Backup... 5 Understanding Business Continuity... 6 The Cost of Downtime... 7 Getting Proactive About Business Continuity... 8 Understand RTO and RPO... 8 Options to Consider... 8

3 Overview Disaster. The word itself sounds ominous and brings to mind any number of calamities. Fires. Floods. Tornadoes. But when it comes to business, would it surprise you to know that natural disasters are not the number one reason why businesses experience issues, data loss and downtime? This Guide will explain the concepts of Data Backup and Business Continuity - how your business should prepare for disaster and ensure it can continue in the face of serious problems. It will cover: So, what is a disaster? The distinct difference between backup and business continuity. The true cost of downtime to your business. The critical concepts of RTO (Recovery Time Objective) and RPO (Recovery Point Objective). The options: solutions to ensure your data and your business are protected. Understanding why business continuity is so critical to any sized business, from SMB to enterprise, will help ensure you are keeping your data safe and that your organization is ready for anything.

4 Introduction This guide is meant to help you gain a better understanding of data backup and business continuity and why both things should matter to your business or organization. If you don't have a backup or business continuity solution in place, this guide will help you understand the concepts and why it is so important to plan for the possibility of disaster, data loss and downtime. It will also present some solution options you may want to consider to protect your data and your business. If you already have a backup solution in place this guide may help fill in some gaps, further your understanding of the importance of business continuity planning and help you understand the latest options in business continuity solutions.

5 So What is a Disaster When it Comes to Business? The word disaster conjures up all sorts of images: extreme weather events like hurricanes, fires destroying office buildings, lava floes melting everything in site. But the reality is, when it comes business, disaster isn't usually related to largescale events. Natural disasters only account for a small percentage of corporate downtime. So what are the biggest disasters? Network outages and human error are the biggest culprits when it comes to interrupting regular business functions. And human error is the number one reason for downtime related to data loss. So it's far more likely that Joe in accounting hit the delete key by accident than Mother Nature causing business headaches. The bottom line: When customers or employees can't access the information they need, companies lose money. And that is definitely a disaster. Understanding Data Backup In today's business world the information or data you possess is what keeps the wheels in motion and in many cases keeps the lights on. Your data is critical to being able to function. What would you do if you couldn't access your customers' records? Or that from last week that contains valuable information is suddenly not there. If that data was somehow gone or missing, your ability to function would essentially be stalled and your business could be at risk. Thinking about backing up your data is a good first step. Data backup is pretty self-explanatory - it means ensuring you have regular copies of your data stored somewhere. It ensures that your data is safe and that you can get it back in case of a failure or disaster. But backup isn't the whole picture. On to business continuity

6 Understanding Business Continuity Business Continuity is also pretty self-explanatory. In a nutshell, it means that for your business to continue or resume properly when issues arise, you've not only thought about data backup, but you also have planned for getting that data back and restoring it within a timeframe that ensures your business isn't likely to suffer. Business continuity planning is critical to ensuring that your organization understands the true cost of downtime and the importance of getting day-to-day business back on track in the face of disaster. When you get right down to it, business continuity is actually focused on disaster prevention - enabling your organization to survive and continue operating during a crisis. For a brief introduction to business continuity, check out the following video.

7 The Cost of Downtime Whether you are a small business or a large company, downtime is painful. According to a 2013 Aberdeen Group study the average cost of downtime was more than $163,000 per hour. The real costs depended on company size: Small companies lose about $8,581 per hour; Medium-sized organizations lose about $215,638 per hour; and Large companies can lose a staggering $686, 250 for every hour of downtime 1 Couple these costs with the knowledge that it takes an average of 7 hours to resume normal activity 2 after a data loss incident and you are talking serious dollars lost. If these figures don't scare you into business continuity planning we don't know what will! You should also try to calculate just how much your business stands to lose for every hour you are down without access to business-critical data: 1. Consider how many employees will be affected by data loss and downtime? 2. What is the average wage of affected employees (per hour)? 3. What are the average overhead costs of affected employees? 4. Estimate how much revenue you would lose for every hour as a result of unavailability of data? 1. "Downtime and Data Loss: How Much Can you Afford?" Aberdeen Group "Wanted: Better Backup" IDG Research Services, 2012

8 Getting Proactive About Business Continuity Now that you understand what downtime and data loss costs your business, you know that being proactive is the best way to ensure your business can survive a crisis. The next section discusses some important considerations that will help in your business continuity planning. Understand RTO and RPO When you start the business continuity planning process you need to start thinking in terms of Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO). RTO - this refers to the length of time within which your business needs to be restored to normal functioning after a disruption or disaster. In other words, how quickly you want to be back up and running. RPO - this means the maximum amount of tolerable time in which data might be lost due to a disaster. This helps you determine how much data you can afford to lose without hurting your business and as a result, how often you need to perform data backups. Calculating Your Own Downtime Costs The link below takes you to the CareWorx recovery time calculator - so you can calculate just how much not being to access data could cost your business - hourly. Visit CareWorx Recovery Time Calculator

9 Options to Consider Then, once you have determined your RTO (Recovery Time Objective) and RPO (Recovery Point Objective) you need to find the solutions that will best suit your business. But the general rule is this: you need to have a backup of your backup. Ask any IT person - it's an unwritten law. There are different kinds of data backup and options you will need to consider: Backup types Tape-Based Backup: This is the oldest way to backup data and many companies still use this method - although it does take longer to actually perform the backups and in the case of recovery it takes considerably longer to recover your systems. These are generally stored somewhere offsite. Local/Appliance: This option refers to having your data backed up onto an actual appliance that is situated somewhere on your business premises. The pro: in terms of recovery - your data is right there, stored locally and within easy reach. Con: on-premise appliances can be vulnerable to disaster also. Or they could fail just like any device. Cloud Backup: Cloud-based solutions replicate your data and store it remotely online on an offsite server usually hosted by a third party provider. Hybrid Solutions: This is a combination of local and cloud-based backup. Kind of a 'best of both worlds' approach. Data is stored to a local device but also replicated to cloudbased storage.

10 Image vs. File-Based Backup: There are two common types of backup solutions - image and file-based. Filebased backup allows you to choose the files you want to back up and either save them to a device or the cloud. Image-based backup captures an image of your data in its environment - creating exact replications of what is stored on a server (including operating system, configurations and settings etc.). Summary We hope we have given you some things to consider when it comes to data backup and business continuity. Planning to prevent downtime in the midst of a crisis is one of the most important things you can do for your business. There are many backup and business continuity options to fit the specific needs of your organization. CareWorx has extensive experience assessing IT environments and recommending business continuity solutions. Learn more about how we can help you protect your data and your business.

11 About CareWorx CareWorx is a top 100 global managed service provider (MSP) and the marketleader in technology solutions for senior care. The CareWorx Managed IT division provides organizations with a complete platform to deliver 24 7 service desk, IT service management, IT automation, security and selfservice to end-users. CareWorx helps customers assess their existing infrastructure, deploy new solutions and manage technology on an ongoing basis so they can focus on other mission-critical tasks. The CareWorx Senior Care division is the industry s largest provider of managed point-of-care, emar, mobile computing and wireless solutions. More than 4,000 facilities currently operate over 50,000 CareWorx touchscreens for their daily electronic health record (EHR) documentation. CareWorx designs its technology solutions to be rugged enough to withstand the environment of a Senior Care facility while being extremely efficient and energy conscious. CareWorx supports customers and and network of partners across North America. Visit for more information on our products and services.