Backup and DR, are you prepared?

One item that many companies forget to think about when implementing a sound Backup/DR solution is, how long will it take to restore your files required? What is the actual time of recovery and how much does that downtime cost you?

First, you need to pick a backup solution that fits your needs. Mirror Backup, Full Backup, Incremental Backup and Differential Backup. Once you decide on your methodology, you can then craft and create a robust and form a DR plan.

Make sure you have a Data Protection Policy. Once you have it, DO NOT deviate from it. This will save you if you ever get audited or if you do a self audit. There is no excuse to not have this in place due to the sensitive data that is stored within your organization.

As I mentioned at the beginning, you MUST backup your data properly so your recovery can go as planned and not cause a severe outage. Most SLA's are never met due to the fact that the proper testing of backup and restore did not take place. The restoration takes many more hours than originally thought. Never assume, test out your new technology. Lasty, test your DR plan on a quarterly basis as things change over time.

If you are looking for maximum protection, Duplicate your Backup. Hot standby Backups are a true life insurance policy that you hope you never need, however if you do, it can cut your outage down to minutes vs. hours or days. Unplanned outages are rising year over year and it is usually due to human error.

Don't forget to Backup your Big Data either. Failure to do this might be costly and a bit complex, however by not doing this, could spell doom for the entire organization,

You can also help speed up your traditional backup process by implementing active archiving that create natively available secondary copies such as REST, FS and API's. By implementing an intelligent incremental capture for files and applications can greatly reduce your backup time.

Lastly, only backup the data that you will absolutely need to run your organization and toss the rest of it. Why do this? Goes back to the first item I brought up, recovery time. The recovery process will be much easier if your system does not have to also restore a massive amount of useless or old outdated files.