Back up and recovery planning isn’t all that exciting or interesting. The problem is, you won’t know yours isn't strong enough until it’s too late.
It’s likely that you often ignore little signs that your plan has problems. We bet updating it goes to the back of your to-do list, because frankly, who has time? But then one day, you turn on your computer and you’ve got the blue screen of doom or ransomware bargaining for your private data and files.
Only then do you realise how important it is to find the holes in your back up and recovery plan and make sure it is watertight.
So is your back plan good enough? Let's find out.
Here are 5 signs that your back up and recovery plan needs some attention.
1 - You Don't Have A Back Up Plan
Failure to plan is planning to fail - or so they say. Not having a plan at all is an obvious sign of an issue. If you’re not taking adequate steps to back up and protect all of your important files for your business, then you’re just waiting for disaster to find you.
It’s possible you’ve been lucky up to this point. But it’s also possible that all it will take is just one corrupt hard drive or accidental malware download before losing everything your company needs to operate day-to-day.
With a good back up plan you can be back up and running in a matter of hours if disaster strikes. With a bad back up plan, it could be weeks or months before you recover. And no back up plan at all? You can probably kiss your data goodbye for good.
2 - You Don't Have Team Training
You might have a back up plan in place, but if you don’t have team training on how to implement it, then your team won’t be using it properly.
This makes it incredibly easy for mistakes and mishaps, and when you need it most, your back up plan will fail.
The worst may happen and you need to recover your lost data, but poor implementation will mean it will be like you didn’t have a plan at all.
3 - You Didn't Do A Back Up In The Last Week
If you haven’t backed up in the last week, then it’s a sign that your strategy isn’t working. Your recovery plan is only as good as your last back up, since anything added after your last save date won’t be stored.
If you’re creating new data on a daily basis with documents, emails and client projects, they won’t be saved unless you’re fully up to date.
The best thing is to revisit your back up plan to see why you’re not backing up more frequently and make appropriate changes. This way you’ll be protected should disaster strike.
4 - You're Reliant On Hardware Only
A more traditional approach to a back up and recovery plan is to store everything on hardware. This simple drag and drop style likely involves copying your most precious digital information to an external hard drive.
Unfortunately - or fortunately! - the world has moved on from this practice. This is no longer safe enough and leaves you at high risk of a corrupt hard drive ruining everything you’ve tried to save.
The strongest and most reliable back up plans are not only hardware-based, but also involve cloud-based back up.
We know creating strong back up plans can be intimidating because they are complex. That's why it’s a good idea to bring in the experts to help you, so you know you’re covered.
5 - You Don't Have A Plan In Place For When It All Goes Wrong
You may well have a back up plan - you may even be backing up your data regularly using the cloud. But you’re in trouble if you don’t actually know what to do when the dreaded day comes.
Your company could grind to a halt unnecessarily while you figure things out after the fact.
Imagine if you turned your PC on to discover your files were all lost. What’s your first step to recovery?
If you don’t know what to do in that exact moment, then you’ll be at a huge disadvantage.
What Can You Do To Protect Yourself?
Back up and recovery planning is something you should do before you need it.
If you wait until the moment you need your files recovered, then it’s too late. We don’t need to tell you that the impact lost data can have on a business is huge.
It can stall your business and cost you both time and money. It may even cost you your clients!
The only way to ensure you do have a reliable back up plan is to bring in back up and recovery experts to help you.
At Data Innovations we know what the back up pitfalls are and how to avoid them. So, if you’d like peace of mind and to keep your data safe, get in touch with us to create a back up and recovery plan you can depend on.