continuity Archives - Quo Vadis, Inc.

28 Jul 2023

backup, continuity David McDonald 0 comment

Why Your Business Needs a Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan

Even on a good day, being a business owner is challenging. Apart from dealing with and effectively solving multiple problems, you also need the foresight to arm your business with the right tools and solutions to tackle any issues that might arise later.

One issue you should always prioritize is data loss/data corruption and business disruption that cause downtime and productivity dips. Remember that data loss/data corruption and business disruption could happen due to various reasons, such as:

· Natural calamity

· Hardware failure

· Human error

· Software corruption

· Computer viruses

Adopting a comprehensive backup and business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) strategy is the best way to tackle this problem

What is a comprehensive backup and BCDR strategy?

A comprehensive backup and BCDR strategy emphasizes the need for various technologies working together to deliver uptime. It even highlights technologies associated with cybersecurity. A robust strategy:

Protects all systems, devices and workloads

Managing all systems, devices and workloads efficiently, securely and consistently can be challenging. Mistakes, errors, mishaps and outright failures across backup and recovery systems could happen at any time, leading to severe downtime or other costly business consequences. That’s why it’s essential to have a reliable and secure solution to back up and protect business data as well as business systems, devices and workloads.

Ensures the integrity, availability and accessibility of data

The complexity of IT, network and data environments that include multiple sites — cloud, on-premises and remote — makes monitoring and protection difficult. It negatively affects the integrity, availability and accessibility of information and all IT network assets. That’s why it’s a best practice to simultaneously deploy tools or systems that cover all IT and network infrastructure (remote, cloud and on-site) with the same level of protection and security.

Enables business resilience and continuity

A comprehensive and realistically achievable backup and BCDR strategy prioritizes, facilitates and ensures the continuity of business operations. It represents a business’ resiliency against downtime or data loss incidents.

Prioritizes critical protection and security requirements against internal and external risks

No backup or BCDR solution can be effective if your business does not proactively identify and mitigate internal and external risks. You need tools that focus on internal and external threats through constant monitoring, alerting and tactical defence to empower your backup and BCDR strategy.

Optimizes and reduces storage needs and costs through deduplication

With the amount of data skyrocketing day after day, it poses serious storage and budgetary challenges for businesses. What makes things worse is the existence of multiple unnecessary copies of the same files. Therefore, adopting the deduplication process can identify data repetition and ensure that no similar data is stored unnecessarily.

Manages visibility and unauthorized access and fulfills data retention requirements

Your business data must never be visible to every employee in the same way. There must be policies and tools to ensure that an employee accesses only data essential to completing their tasks. Also, unauthorized access must be identified and blocked immediately. This is crucial not only for the success of backups and BCDR but also for maintaining compliance with all regulatory mandates related to data protection and retention.

Comprehensive backup and BCDR for your business

By now, it must be clear to you that adopting a comprehensive backup and BCDR strategy is not an option but a necessity. An occasional, severe data loss incident or disruption even could open the gates for your competitors to eat into your profits and customer base.

You must do everything possible to bring all the right tools and strategies together so your business can operate seamlessly, even in the face of chaos. Are you ready to approach the concept of comprehensive backup and BCDR practically?

It isn’t as difficult as you might think. Collaborate with an expert partner like us with the knowledge and experience to take care of your backup and BCDR needs.

Get in touch with us today to learn more.

21 Jul 2023

backup, continuity David McDonald 0 comment

Data Loss Disasters Come in Many Forms

Data loss disasters encompass a wide range of events, from natural calamities to cyberattacks to simple human mistakes. Such disasters can have a severe impact on businesses, leading to operational disruptions, financial losses, damaged reputation, and even legal consequences due to the loss of valuable data.

To mitigate these risks, it is imperative for businesses of all sizes to establish a Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) plan. By implementing a robust BCDR strategy, you can ensure a swift recovery and restoration of your business in the event of a disaster, while also meeting governmental and industry regulatory requirements.

In this article, we will explore the different types of data loss disasters and highlight the key components of a BCDR plan that can effectively navigate you through such disruptive events.

The many forms data loss can take

Various forms of data loss disasters can impact your business. These include:

Natural disasters

Events such as storms (including electrical), floods, fires, hurricanes, and (to a lesser extent in our area) tsunamis and volcano eruptions can cause infrastructural damages, power failures, and mechanical failures, leading to data loss.

Hardware and software failure

Disruptions in software and hardware, whether caused by bugs, glitches, configuration errors, component failures, or outdated technology, can result in data loss if appropriate BCDR measures are not in place.

Unforeseen circumstances

Data loss can occur due to incidents not easily predicted. For example, a portable hard disk may be stolen, a water leak in the server room due to plumbing issues, or a pest infestation in a data center.

The human factor

Human errors contribute significantly to data loss incidents. These errors range from accidental file deletions, overwriting existing files, and naming convention mistakes to forget to save or back up data or damaging storage devices.

Cyberthreats

Malware, ransomware, viruses, and unauthorized access by malicious insiders pose significant risks to data security. Such attacks can corrupt and render data and backups irrecoverable.

Key components of BCDR

To build a robust BCDR strategy, consider the following key components:

Risk assessment

Identify potential risks and threats that could impact your business operations. Quantify and measure these risks to effectively address them.

Business impact analysis (BIA)

Assess the potential consequences of a disruptive event on critical business functions and prioritize them in your recovery plan.

Continuity planning

Develop procedures and protocols to resume critical business operations with minimal downtime during a disruption.

Disaster recovery planning

Create a well-defined plan to recover critical IT functions and data following a disruptive incident.

Testing and maintenance

Regularly test your disaster recovery and backup plans to ensure they can be successfully executed during a real disaster. Identify any weaknesses or gaps and make necessary enhancements.

Wondering where to begin?

Embarking on the journey of developing and implementing a BCDR plan may seem daunting. However, we are here to assist you in building the right BCDR strategy tailored to your business requirements. Feel free to contact us today to initiate the process.

08 Jan 2018

backup, Business, continuity, recovery Joseph Squicciarini 0 comment

How Long Can You Afford?

So much has changed… I recall sitting down with one of our long-time clients and describing the USB backup concept using two USB drives and swapping them out weekly. I explained that the drives would cost less than $100 a piece and there was no monthly fee. Simple and effective (back then.)

I was surprised when he told me that he couldn’t afford it! Really? He had been pounding away on his calculator (yes, he IS a CPA) and confidently knew that his firm could not afford to lose a week’s worth of data. This man knows his business and his profit structure. Few do. We reworked his backup strategy to accommodate his needs. Fast forward a decade or more… The issue now is not whether we have a current backup. The data is no longer the issue. Today we need to reconstruct the environment. Having the QuickBooks data is worthless without a QuickBooks server… Having the SoftPro data is useless without the SoftPro server…

The experts call this concept Maximum Tolerable Downtime (MTD). These experts believe that the threats out there today are inevitable. Whether it’s data theft, misuse, ransomware or failure, it’s going to happen sooner or later. We have our vulnerability scans on sale during 2018 Q1. Cisco did a study in 2016 of how long you can expect your business to be down, in the event of a breach. Odds are you’ll be down for a day…

We view your backup strategy in three phases:

First is data backup. Almost inconsequential now. Our ability to restore a single file or folder of data quickly and easily. The backup window describes how long between each backup. The restore window is more important. It defines how long it would take to restore all of the backed up data. In the case of an encryption virus, this can be a long time.

Second is business continuity. How long can your business be down before losses or reputation damage is irreparable? Mirrored servers and hourly backups allow us to provide near immediate fail-over for your business.

Finally, disaster recovery provides for a complete replacement of your office infrastructure to keep your business going while replacements are made.

Each of these incremental steps have a cost. It’s like buying insurance for your business (a question we often receive) and how much it’s worth. There’s no right or wrong answer, it’s an individual decision, with which you must live. Let’s have an informed conversation about it. Call the Help Desk and choose option 2 for Wise Counsel, or email admin@quo.cc to get a quote.