Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) and How to Protect Your Business

Backup and disaster recovery (BDR) is essential for any business wanting to protect itself against downtime and secure its data. In the event of a catastrophic data loss or security breach, companies can fall back on BDR to restore their systems to a prior state.

Why Backup and Disaster Recovery Matters

Backup and disaster recovery is essential for all organizations, but particularly those that rely on data, such as manufacturers, banks, media companies, airlines, and educational institutions. Losing data can prevent enterprises from functioning and lead to substantial reputational damage and lost productivity. Not only that, authorities may seek to punish with hefty fines and invasive audits of their processes.

What Types Of BDR Schemes Are Available?

Various types of backups are available, depending on organizational requirements.

Full backups are approaches that copy organizations’ data in its entirety into separate databases for later retrieval. Firms offering these services typically perform backups periodically instead of in real-time. Therefore, breach recovery usually involves rewinding the clock to the previous period and losing the most recent data.

Incremental backups work differently by only making copies of the new data since the last backup. As such, this approach is efficient and cost-effective and may occur more often.

Recovery typically involves assessing the scope of the disaster. Technicians will try to discover the extent of any breach or loss and what they need to retrieve from storage.

Once systems are secure, professionals start transferring data to relevant user endpoints. Then, operators test procedures to ensure proper function.

How To Protect Your Business

While backup and disaster recovery is effective, it only works when implemented correctly. Therefore, this section presents the essential steps your organization must take to protect itself.

Carry Out A Risk Assessment

The first step is a risk assessment to discover your organization’s vulnerabilities. Knowing your weak points helps inform the form your BDR scheme takes.

Flesh Out Your BDR Strategy

The next step is to flesh out your BDR strategy with practical elements that provide protection. Your enterprise will need a combination of the following: cloud-based recovery data backups, physical storage, redundant hardware for use in emergencies, and alternative premises for business operation. You should also have a recovery plan detailing the steps you must take before reinstalling data on branched or compromised endpoints and networks.

Determine Your Critical IT Resources

While doing this, identify the software, systems, and services essential for business operation. Knowing these in advance lets you create backups that are operational rapidly after an adverse event.

Store Data Off-Site

Once you know your strategy, it is time to implement it. Begin the process of installing systems that back up your data to various third-party sites. Ensure you can access data freely when required.

Test Your Plan

Finally, test your plan before going live. Check BDR services are copying data in its entirety and storing it safely off-site. Look for any weaknesses in your approach and fix them if necessary.

If you require assistance with any aspect of BDR to ensure reasonable uptime and maintain employee productivity, contact Bastion for support.