Disaster Backup / Disaster Recovery

Abstract

Data has become the core currency of the current organizations as a result of the digitization of the economy.  The paper addresses the issues involved in the creation of backup as well as disaster recovery plans which normally falls under the classification of the business continuity management plans. It is imperative that the small, as well as the medium organizations, ensures that they do not lose their data. Current research offers the indication that the failure of the servers of the small as well as medium businesses in some occasions results in the failure of these enterprises. The current environment characterized by the efforts of all the business enterprises striving to ensure that they protect their data through the implementation of the backup as well as the recovery plans. The paper addresses the issues that the business organizations put into consideration when addressing these plans. Additionally the technologies adopted in the implementation of these plans are the significant additional attribute that the paper about. With the backup plans, the organization ensures that most of their vital information resources are safe while the recovery plans to ensure that it does not close its operations and that it takes the least time to recover.

Disaster Backup

Most of the business organizations currently run their operations on a 24/7 basis whereby there is no room for having a downtime. In the current globalize economy; most of the organizations have adopted their operations in a failsafe mode to ensure their information databases. It follows that any loss of data from the emails, updated legal proceedings, the payroll records as well as the other databases have the likelihood of costing the organization not just money but their reputation. It is thus imperative that every organization has the adequate backup as well as recovery plans (Preimesberger, 2015). With the implementation of the effective backup plan, the organization can protect their mission-critical data against the various types of risks that the organization could face. The implementation of an effective database backup strategy encompasses a mixture of technology as well as processes that are meant to prepare for the possible failures resulting in loss of business or disruption of the operations (Ezarik, 2003).  In the preparation of the backup strategies, the organizations need to begin with the evaluation of their recovery point objectives as well as the recovery time objectives. The recovery point objective offers an indication of the extent of the data that the organization is willing to lose in the event of a disaster. The recovery point objective, on the other hand, offers the indication of the speed that the organization will take in recovering their operations (Cheng, Ganapati, & Ganapati, 2015).

In the consideration of the time, the issues addressed include the duration it takes to retrieve the backup and consequently put into operations. The other consideration is about the isolation whereby it follows that the backups need to be separate from the production system to guarantee that any possible disruption to the production does not affect the backups. Regarding the performance consideration, it follows that the backup techniques possess diverse effect on the performance of the running database (Disaster Recovery Yellow Pages delivered by Systems Audit Group, 1997). The backup administrator needs to ensure that they address the impact that the backup technique has since some of the backup solutions degrade the performance of the database. In these cases, it will be imperative to schedule the backups at a time when it is possible to avoid the peak usage thus interrupting the general organization operations. Regarding the decisions in the process of restoring the backup, it follows that the backup system is only as good as the ease of its installation ability (Pinta, 2011). Thus, the backup strategy needs to ensure that it has not only good data but also exhibit good abilities about restoring from the same strategy and that they are operation at the time of data emergency. On the subject of the complexity of the deployment, the common assertion is that although the backup is vital on the disaster scenarios, it should not be the sole focus. The organization should desire for a backup strategy that presents an easy set up as well as being easy to maintain over time so that one can easily focus on the business.

Disaster Recovery

The disaster recovery planning encompasses the process that organizations adopt in their preparations for the disruptive events. The involvement of the management in this process is very significant as they can provide guidance, overseeing, input as well as support. The backup plan should encompass the manner in which the employees are going to communicate; where they will be going as well as the how, they proceed with their jobs. In this case, there is a great variation regarding the size as well as the scope of the organization along with the manner that they conduct their business (Cheng, Ganapati, & Ganapati, 2015). At the beginning of the disaster recovery plan, it is imperative that the administrator of the plan addresses the organization’s business impact analyzes. The implementation of the BIA will assist in the identification of the vital systems to the organization as well as the processes along with the overall impact that the outage on business (Sohal, 2013).

The more defined the potential impact of the occurrence is, the more the resources that the organization needs to spend in restoring their processes or systems fast. The chief issues that the backup administrator along with the organization needs to address include the developing as well as practicing a contingency plan that encompasses the succession plan for the CEO. Training the backup employees on the tasks that they need to perform in the event of an emergency is additionally an essential step in the plan (Quang, Kien, Borcea, & Yamada, 2014).  The organization should ensure that the employees tasked with the addressing the disaster situation have the necessary training to be able to continue with the operations when the emergency occurs. The disaster recovery plan should ensure that it determines the offsite meeting place that the top executives will sue in addressing the business situations. Through these meeting, the executives will be able to chart the way forward for their organization and at the same time get in touch with the necessary partners to assist in the recovery (Preimesberger, 2015).

The plan needs to ensure that all the employees and the executive take part in the emergency drills to ensure that they actively involved in the responses to the disaster emergency. The plan that the organization employs should encompass exercises that are realistic and have the ability to tap into the emotions of the employees thus offering an opportunity to assess their reactions to the stressful situations (Sohal, 2013). They additionally practice the crisis communications regarding the employees, clients as well as the outside world. The development of partnerships with the local emergency response teams such as the firefighters, EMTs as well as the police with the objective of establishing effective working relationships. It is imperative to ensure that this group is familiar with the organization as well as the surroundings and as a result, they will not have a difficult time when called in after a disaster strikes. Ensuring that there is an evaluation of the organization’s performance on a regular basis as well as seeking constant improvements will serve to ensure that the possible weaknesses addressed before the actual disaster strikes (Disaster Recovery Yellow Pages delivered by Systems Audit Group, 1997).

The importance that the implementation of these interventions play are the fact that the organization can comply with the regulations set rules for the regulating agencies in the regions. As a result, the possible penalties such as fines will not be the case for the organization and thus will not be losing money that would otherwise have used in their disaster plans (Ezarik, 2003).  By compliance the organization ensures that they protect and thus with this peace of mind, they can plan their development plans. This organization that complies additionally enjoy from the fact that they can protect their reputation in the eyes of their clients. As a result, they enjoy the consequent loyalty that comes from these customers (Preimesberger, 2015). The impact that the failure of adopting the plans has been that these organizations will be suffering from the constant failures of their system. The fact that the organizations will not withstand any disaster that strikes implies that they will be losing their vital resources on a regular basis. The outcome of this failure is the fact that the clients are going to lose hope in the organization and thus start running away to the other firms with better plans (Pinta, 2011).Additionally, this organization is going to be in constant rivalry with the government. Thus, the fines and closures will affect their operations negatively. The high costs that come with the loss of the vital data will make some of these organizations unable to recover while others will take a very long duration as they attempt to recover from these losses.

References

Cheng, S., Ganapati, E., & Ganapati, S. (2015). Measuring disaster recovery: bouncing back or reaching the counterfactual state?. Disasters, 39(3), 427-446. doi:10.1111/disa.12112

Disaster Recovery Yellow Pages delivered by Systems Audit Group. (1997). Professional Safety, 42(7), 15.

Ezarik, M. (2003). The Backup Book (Book). District Management, 38(11), 82.

Pinta, J. (2011). Disaster Recovery Planning as a Division of Business Continuity Management. 

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in Online Writing Services if you need a similar paper you can place your order from free essay writing services.