If your business suffered a disaster tomorrow, how would you react? 

An office flood, fire, power cut, hardware failure or computer virus could bring operations to a halt. As a key decision maker, do you know your disaster recovery (DR) plan? Maybe it's been a few years since you last re-evaluated your DR plan and it's time to set new priorities and put your plan to the test. 

Disaster recovery plans relate specifically to the IT components of your business and fit into an overall strategy for business continuity, which also involves the people and processes that would be affected by a disaster. 

With a DR plan designed to your exact specifications, you can eliminate the service interruptions, economic losses and disruption to your team and customers. Preparation truly is the key to success, especially considering the costs of downtime, which can swamp small and medium sized businesses. 

The IT Disaster Recovery Preparedness Council estimated that a single hour of downtime costs up to $8,000 for small businesses, $74,000 for mid-size and up to $700,000 for large enterprises. 

5 More Important Disaster Recovery Statistics to Know:

• 60% of SMBs that lost their data will shut down within 6 months (source). 
• 58% of SMBs are unprepared for data loss (source). 
• In 2017, 61% of businesses experienced a cyber attack, and 54% experienced a data breach (source). 
• Only 39% of businesses said that the technologies they currently use could detect and block most cyber attacks (source). 
• The average cost of network downtime is around $5,600 per minute. That's $300,000 per day (source)! 

More than just lost revenue, downtime puts your sensitive data at risk, and compromises mission-critical apps or services. Depending on your industry, lost personal data could leave you in breach of compliance regulations and at risk for major fines or disciplinary action. 

If you're re-evaluating your DR plan or building one from scratch, don't just focus on the worst-case scenarios, like an earthquake. This tunnel vision diverts your focus from simpler vulnerabilities in your system, like infrequent backups or legacy hardware on its last legs. 

Building an excellent disaster recovery plan:

• Assess your overall IT infrastructure and your current DR plan (if one exists). Where are your greatest strengths and weaknesses? What types of 'data loss disasters' are your biggest risks? 
• Identify your mission-critical servers, apps and systems. Determine which ones need to be restored first in case of unplanned downtime or data loss. 
• Determine how much downtime you can tolerate. This is referred to as your RTO (recovery time objective) and RPO (recovery point objective). How much downtime can be allowed, and what is the variable amount of data you can acceptably 'lose' and re-enter?
• Enlist the help of a managed services partner with the expertise to build a DR solution for your unique needs. 

Your next steps:

A successful DR plan will equip your business with a cost effective means of replicating your critical IT systems to an enterprise class secondary location. It is tested frequently and can scale with your business as your needs evolve. 

Does this sound like your current plan? If not, start your process today with the help of our disaster recovery experts.