Most commercial processes in companies are being performed on digital platforms. Therefore, data backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity solutions have become crucial in every sector. These elements are designed to help preserve data and ensure that a business can continue operating efficiently after the loss of data. Unfortunately, these three terms are not well-understood by most business owners, managers and executives.
In some cases, a business might assume that even after loss of data through adverse weather, hacking or internal accidents, they can continue operating smoothly. However, they might find recovery difficult because the measures in place were insufficient. Consider this brief discussion on data backup, disaster recovery, and continuity solutions.
Data Backup
Data backup is the simplest solution designed to preserve data. As implied, this process involves making a copy of the data generated during commercial processes. The copy can be stored in an offsite backup location, cloud, external hard drive or even a tape. The data is normally collected and stored in its raw form. Therefore, the files will not include elements such as applications and programs, network configurations and other settings.
With a simple backup solution in place, if you lose your company data you will experience difficulties recovering. Without the supporting settings and applications, you will need to repair the entire network. After that, you can restore the data and proceed with your operations. This means that you might need days or weeks to resume normal business.
Disaster Recovery
Business disaster recovery is important because there are numerous potential dangers. In general, disaster recovery can be defined as having the ability to recover and restore all the data as well as software and settings lost during a small or major disaster. A disaster recovery solution is more effective than simple backups. This option allows you to get your uncorrupted data faster, and you will not need to build your network to resume operations.
Continuity
Numerous people confuse disaster recovery with business continuity. However, disaster recovery can only be considered as one component of continuity. In general, continuity is not only designed to handle small-scale problems like the other processes, but it also considers the worst-case scenario that could affect your business. For example, if you lost your premises through a major natural disaster or fire, simple disaster recovery will not help you.
Continuity is designed to help you resume all your operations quickly even without your local area network. It will allow you to recover all information, processes, and settings in the network. In addition, your employees will be able to access the customer data and company files without relying on on-premises IT infrastructure. If your business has a cloud business solution or has synced operations with an offsite data center, continuity can be achieved.
Disaster Recovery or Continuity
You can choose disaster recovery or continuity solutions for your business. The most significant difference between the two options is the ease and speed with which you can resume operations. Continuity solutions ensure that there is minimal downtime between data loss and normal operations. However, the cost of setting up disaster recovery solutions may be lower.
If you would like to learn more about backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity, consult our experts at Idealstor.