There’s a lot to consider when writing a business continuity plan. The plan needs to establish the process for continuing business operations in the event of a disaster, incident or outage. Business continuity plans don’t focus on IT systems, but the departments that are supported by IT, including sales, customer service, and HR. In addition, it’s essential to plan for the protection and recovery of the company’s data.

Why is it so important to protect data? To put it simply, your data is the lifeblood of your company. Without it, you can’t fulfill orders, communicate with customers, product reports, measure progress, contact employees, market your business and more. Data is essential to both day-to-day operations and long-term objectives, which is why it’s so important to include in business continuity discussions.

A good business continuity plan will cover both data protection (the process of safeguarding information from corruption or loss), and data recovery, (the process of restoring data that has been lost.) And because most data loss occurs due to simple human error, not large-scale incidents or outages, it’s important for each and every business to include data in business continuity plans.

But how should data be incorporated into the plan? Disaster Recovery Journal recently shared a few basic tips, which we’ll summarize here.

Backup:

First and most importantly, ensure that your data is backed up, either physically or virtually.

Recovery:

Consider colocating data on the cloud so that it can be recovered in the event of a loss. This limits downtime by allowing employees remote access.

Remote Data Movement:

Copy data to a location outside the primary physical location, or better yet, to the cloud. This will ensure that it remains safe through fire or natural disaster.

Storage System Security:

It’s important that your storage facility is accessible to employees. However, it’s vital to protect it from unauthorized users who may have bad intentions.

Test and Test Again:

Make sure all essential employees know the procedures for backup and recovery, and run drills to ensure that data can be easily recovered in the event of a loss.

From data backup and storage to cloud colocation, Vaultas can help your company prepare for disaster. Give Vaultas a call at 888-998-2858, or contact us online. With custom solutions to meet the most demanding IT needs, we’ll work with you to find the best solutions for your business.