Joe Unger

Disaster Recovery vs. Business Continuity

If you’ve been tasked with writing disaster recovery and business continuity plans for your company, you may be confused. Are disaster recovery and business continuity the same thing? Can I write just one plan to cover both?

Although they seem similar, disaster recovery and business continuity are different. They play unique and important roles in a company’s contingency planning, so it’s important to write a separate plan for each.

However, the plans will be closely related, and likely written in conjunction with one another. The information gathered during the business continuity planning process helps to determine the details of the disaster recovery plan, and vice versa.

Disaster recovery plans and business continuity plans are designed to work together, and are often implemented at the same time following an outage or incident. But they cover fully different aspects of a business, as we’ll discuss in detail below.

Disaster recovery refers to the plan implemented by a company’s IT department to bring systems back online with minimal data loss following an outage. The outage can either result from a disaster or it can actually be the disaster. And the outage can be as minor as email, an online service or the phone system going offline, or the entire IT system going down.

Business continuity refers to the plan that establishes the process of continuing business operations following an outage or incident. This does not include IT systems, but refers to the departments IT supports, such as customer service, sales, HR or others. The business continuity plan will work to keep all parts of the business running when outages occur.

It’s important for all Minnesota businesses to have both IT disaster recovery and business continuity plans. Outages are common, and businesses should be prepared. At Vaultas, our experienced Minneapolis data solutions experts can help you plan for the worst.

Whether your data is in our data center, your data center or a national cloud provider’s environment, we can preconfigure a solution that keeps you operating right through any disaster or disruption to your business. Contact us for more information.

4 Reasons Why You Need DRaaS and Business Continuity

Today, when you pay attention to the news, you hear a lot about data breeches, natural disasters and the inevitable network failure. It pays for every company to have a Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity plan in place for their business. No business can sustain a network failure of any kind in today’s marketplace, no matter what size they are.

According to Cloud Strategy Magazine, here are “four reasons to put cloud-based business continuity on your short list of IT priorities:

  1. Eventually, your company will suffer a disaster.

It could be tomorrow, next week or next year, but at some point your key data will disappear. This could be from a natural disaster, hacking, hardware crash, or service outage – at some point it will happen.

According to the Disaster Recovery Preparedness Council, 75% of companies are failing in terms of disaster readiness. In the last year, one in four companies have lost most or all of their data for “hours or even days.” If it happens to you, you will want your recovery to be quick, efficient and successful.

  1. Cloud-based business continuity is ready for prime time.

Backing up important data remotely is now mainstream. But “storing data in the cloud for recovery back on-premise obviously does not equal business continuity” according to Cloud Strategy Magazine.

While it is more than just storing data in the cloud, “When DR/BC take place in the public cloud, large workloads and data sets are already stored there, meaning they can be easily and quickly brought online to help your business continue operations as soon as possible.” You will want to find a DRaaS solution that will let you test easily and frequently with both large and small tests, at varying times of the day, so you can replicate what potentially could happen in a disaster.

  1. The DR/BC trifecta finally arrives.

Affordability, automation and scalability – what IT teams need to look for in failover solutions. Now that DRaaS solutions are more available, the cost has come down to match the demand. Business continuity automation is becoming a standard offering now from major providers.

The scalability comes from the DRaaS providers who offer a multitude of services to fit the varying needs of businesses. Providing cloud computing, hybrid IT, disaster recovery and more to ensure all of your business practices are covered within the cloud.

  1. Business resiliency is now within your reach

Now through automation, or a supporting team at a qualified data center, automating the testing helps to keep the management headaches at bay. Testing your DR/BC is the fundamental practice that ensures that your plan will work when it needs to. The more automated it can be, the less time it will take your IT team to regularly test the system to make sure it’s simply working.

Business resiliency is now available to companies of every size. Finding a DRaaS partner who can understand your needs and tailor a scalable, affordable solution to your company is a must. The team at Vaultas can help you create your DR/BC plan to ensure smooth, uninterrupted business operations. They will even give you a free assessment to get you started. For more information, contact Vaultas today.

Crypto Viruses are on the Rise. Is Your Data Secure?

The largest data threat of 2016 is ransomware, or crypto viruses. Companies need to ensure that they protect themselves and educate their employees about this threat. The Milwaukee BizTimes published an article this week saying, “At the end of March 2016, 93 percent of all phishing emails contained encryption ransomware, up from 56 percent in December and less than 10 percent every other month in 2015.”

Ransomware is a type of malicious software designed to block access to a computer system until a sum of money is paid. These attacks can be against individuals, but typically they are targeted at companies because the payoff can be higher. In their article, “Incidents of Ransomware on the Rise,” the FBI says that “Ransomware attacks are … becoming more sophisticated. Several years ago, ransomware was normally delivered through spam e-mails, but because e-mail systems got better at filtering out spam, cyber criminals turned to spear phishing e-mails targeting specific individuals.”

The phishing emails from cyber criminals can spoof law enforcement agencies, service providers, delivery companies, government agencies or they can even look like they’re from your operating system claiming that you need an update. The BizTimes recommends that employees get trained on best practices to avoid crypto viruses. Make sure that they only open attachments from known sources, be wary of .exe files, if their computer suddenly gets an increase in pop-up ads or seems overly sluggish then they should report it to their IT departments as soon as possible.

IBM says that internal attacks from either malicious insiders or inadvertent actors accounts for up to 60% of the corporate infections that they see. They also claim that in 2015, the top marketplaces to fall victim to ransomware attacks are:

  1. Healthcare
  2. Manufacturing
  3. Financial Services
  4. Government
  5. Transportation

If your company does get infected, the FBI should be informed immediately. Report it to your local FBI field office and report the incident to the Internet Crime Complaint Center. They do not recommend paying the ransom because paying it doesn’t guarantee that you will receive your data back. In some cases, you may get some but not all of it.

Keeping your data safe and having offsite backups is the most important security measure. The FBI recommends that you “Secure your backups. Make sure they aren’t connected to the computers and networks they are backing up.” Working with a secure data center that uses the latest in Internet security and malware scanning is a must. Vaultas can help guide you through this process, and keep your data safe. For more information on how they can help, contact Vaultas today.

photo credit: Hacker – Hacking – Lupe von Nullen und Einsen – Virus gefunden- Blau via photopin (license)

Do You Need a Colocation Partner for Your Data?

HazardMap2014_lgWith the recent flooding in the Southern Region of the US from the spring storms, companies had to implement their disaster recovery practices for their data. There were several companies who lost their data due to flooding within their companies and server rooms. How could this crisis have been averted? Colocation and remote backup.

Colocation is when you work with an outside data center to backup your data offsite at an outside data center. Ideally, this data center will be more than 100 miles away from your current location so that any natural disaster doesn’t affect your backup storage center. Ideally, if your data is stored in two locations (or sometimes three), the risk of data loss lessens.

If you are looking at possible places for data backup and colocation, IT departments have many questions to ask. According to TechTarget, here are “Two Key Disaster Recovery Colocation Questions to Ask.”

  1. What should I look for?
    1. Accessibility and resource stability of the colocation provider
    2. Ample security measures
    3. Escalation process within the data center
  2. How close should a colocation provider be to my main data center?
    1. This really depends on the disaster scenarios you want to overcome
    2. Workload performance requirements and staff travel logistics
    3. Possible network bottlenecks, switching configuration issues and ISP traffic levels for latency concerns

The key to remember, according to the TechTarget article, is that your data center provider should be a business partner. Someone who is just as vested as you are in the uptime and security of your data, and its storage.

Vaultas has four data centers in Minnesota and Wisconsin. With locations in Alexandria, MN, St. Cloud, MN, Minneapolis, MN and Milwaukee, WI they are the perfect place to house your data and protect it from natural disasters. We know that there are disasters that affect Minnesota and Wisconsin, but with four separate locations between the two states, you can be certain that your data is safe.

If there was a natural disaster that occurred in these areas, you can rest assured that your IT team can visit Vaultas to check on their security measures, or to work from their locations Hot Work Sites if your business has a major outage.

To speak with someone to further understand if the Vaultas data centers are right for you, please contact us today!

Did You Backup Your Data on World Backup Day?

Data is the biggest asset your company has. Your intellectual property, company finances and history, marketing plans and inventory levels are all stored in memory somewhere on premise at your company. What happens if the proverbial bus comes? If there is a storm, a fire, or if someone forgets to do your server backup and then lightning strikes – your company could be in trouble.

March 31st was “World Backup Day” – who knew such a holiday existed? In his “30% of Data Backup Disasters are Caused by Accidents article in Fosters.com, MJ Shoer writes, “World backup day is a private initiative that seeks to create the awareness of the importance of data in our lives. Because of this, backup is no longer a luxury, it’s an absolute must to protect our digital filing cabinets, … document management systems, databases and more.”

Backing up your data can been done in a variety of ways, but whether you use tapes, USB drives, or offsite data storage solutions, you need to make sure that your data is offsite, and in a safe place.

In his article, MJ Shoer shares that:

  • More than 100 mobile devices are lost or stolen every minute
  • One in ten computers is infected with some kind of virus or malware
  • 30% of people have never backed up their devices
  • 30% of data backup disasters are caused by accidents

Don’t get caught off-guard by disaster. Vaultas believes in being prepared to ensure that mission-critical business operations continue during and after any disaster. In addition to offering ideal locations for business continuity, Vaultas also offers the IT and storage services your organization needs for emergency preparedness. We want you to be prepared, no matter the situation. That’s why Vaultas provides comprehensive planning for long-term organizational success.

If you’re looking for the security of a data center for your backups, contact Vaultas today!