Fruitbowl - Fresh Ideas from Hawke's Bay

We have had a recent situation where a client has had a technical failure that has caused a need to go and retrieve data from their backup. It transpired that whilst the backup was working fine, the one file the client really wanted was nowhere to be found on the backup. It had somehow been missed out of the backup schedule. Of course this always happens to other people! A bit like car accidents.

This incident highlights the need for businesses to take stock of their own IT Disaster Recovery processes. Thinking you are doing the it right and testing and proving you are doing it right can be quite different outcomes. And waiting until you actually have an incident or an out-and-out disaster is too late.

When I was an IT Manager in the UK, once a year we did a full IT Disaster Recovery simulation where the entire computer system was recreated off site to ensure the business could be up and running in 24 hours from a technology stand point. This was an annual cost in having a 3^rd party company that would provide the technical hardware and support for this recreation. And it wasn’t cheap. It was an insurance policy in effect.

Practicing IT Disaster Recovery is something that all businesses can do and should do. It takes some planning and once the procedure is in place it should be tested regularly to ensure it is effective. In today’s age almost all businesses have a significant reliance on computer systems. If your computer system went off line and never came back, what would that mean for your business? Okay, so you have a backup procedure. When was the last time you proved it works. Perhaps you are too busy to test the backup. We all know car accidents happen to other people!

 So my question to you is  ‘How good is your Backup?’