Accidents, disasters and attacks can damage your business, halting its operation, losing money and spoiling its reputation.
It could be something as simple as a power cut or as devastating as a sustained flood. A virus infection could be as effective at wiping out your invaluable company data as a flood or fire.
Data Loss
A company's data is one of its most valuable assets and liabilities. Certain information must be protected for legal reasons, either to ensure access to tax inspectors or for data protection purposes, and in order to ensure that this happens, you need to create a business continuity plan – a document which details the measure you have taken in order to avoid disaster, and details how you could continue your business under a variety of disaster scenarios. Your business continuity plan doesn’t need to plan for every eventuality, but it certainly needs to identify the most likely hazards to the most vital files.
Keeping a series of copies of all your data is essential to recovering from a disaster. Backups can be automated and off-site backup systems can store files safely, protecting them from physical threats such as fire, flood and theft.
Data encryption is a good way to reduce the impact of a stolen, lost or hacked computer. Most modern business computers provide basic file encryption without any additional software, while the latest models even provide full hard disk encryption, making it virtually impossible for a thief to access your files.
A power cut can bring down computer systems, damaging the data it stores. An Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) will keep computers running and allow them time to shut down automatically, ensuring the safety of their files.
Equipment Damage
Hard disks are one of the most common parts of a computer to fail and preparing for the possible makes sense. While backups are essential, using a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) system can speed up the time it takes to recover from a hard disk failure. For example, without RAID you might spend hours restoring the latest backups to a newly-fixed file server. With RAID you can swap a broken disk for a new one and be up and running in minutes.
Other components, particularly power supplies and cooling fans, are also potential problems. A supply of spares can mean the difference between half and hour of downtime and over 24 hours, while you wait for a delivery. Holding a store of redundant devices can be expensive, though. Leasing or service agreements offer an alternative where replacement hardware could be a quick phone call away.
Telephone and internet communications are critical to most businesses. Backup plans could involve diverting calls to mobile phones or a managed service. Voice over IP-based telephone systems can be re-routed to alternative internet connections. And don’t forget to keep one or more regular phone lines in the building, as a backup for your voice over IP systems and for accessing emergency services.
Inaccessibility
Running multiple internet connections using different technologies can provide improved network performance during normal operations and you are more likely to maintain access should disaster strike. For a smaller business, a combination of standard broadband (ADSL), mobile (3G) and wireless (802.11x) services will bullet-proof your connectivity.
Retaining a connection has the benefit of providing access to remote employees, who may choose to work from home or may be forced to on occasion by transport issues or other unavoidable problems. Running certain services such as hosted email also means that employees can continue to work even if the main office becomes unviable due to a significant disaster such as fire or flood. Hosted email means that, rather than running your email systems from within your building, they live offsite – in some cases, in buildings which include disaster proofing, allowing them to continue even in the event of a natural disaster.
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