Securing Data Assets with an Enterprise Disaster Recovery Solution

In the wake of terrorist threats and natural disasters that disable our ability to carry on life as we know it, more and more organizations are instituting enterprise disaster recovery solutions that allow them sustain business continuity. If your company is like most, you have important data, networks, software and machines to which you must provide ready access. Are you prepared with an enterprise disaster recovery solution and disaster recovery plan in case something or someone jeopardizes such assets. As hurricanes and man-made chemical weapons pose a threat to governments and countries, so too do power outages and hackers put businesses at risk.

How can you prevent such occurrences from having a bad impact on your organization's IT infrastructure? Start by creating a disaster recovery plan. Sterling Network Services can help you to create such a plan for your business. Our secure managed data center acts as a colocation facility for our clients, so that their data assets and networks are stored in a place separate from their primary data center. Ask about our enterprise disaster recovery solutions. Here are the steps necessary to craft a tenable enterprise disaster recovery solution:

Gather Data and Determine Priority
Start by surveying those in your organization about what is most important to operations as a business. What tools, software and networks are most critical and have the greatest impact on operations? Identify the systems currently in place and document how they are installed, backed up and supported. Your IT disaster recovery plan should place a specific priority on some systems (like your main data center) over others (like desktop applications and easy to replace hardware).

Risk Assessment for Business Continuity
What risks pose a threat to systems and networks either currently in place or planned for implementation? By calling out specific threats in your disaster recovery plan, you can prepare your organization for such occurrences and possibly mitigate them altogether. Identify every possible risk from environmental disasters to deliberate disruption. Focus your enterprise disaster recovery solution on how to avoid and combat loss of service, system failure and acts of terrorism/sabotage. Loss of data, employee productivity, and incoming revenue are all areas covered in the risk assessment portion.

Enterprise Disaster Recovery Solutions & Colocation Facilities
One of the most common exercises in IT disaster recovery planning is to replicate current assets and position them in secure facilities separate from your primary place of business. Sterling Network Services provides a managed data center and colocation facility in downtown Phoenix. Dozens of organizations reap the rewards of carrier neutral network access, conditioned power and internet bandwidth services. The more effort and resources you dedicate to backup and prevention, the easier the disaster recovery process and planning will be.

Crisis Communication
If in fact a disaster unfolds, your enterprise disaster recovery solution should include a method to communicate to major players within and outside your organization. Provide an understanding of what has occurred and set expectations as to how the problem will be remedied and when.

IT Disaster Recovery Plan Testing & Implementation
The final step is to test all aspects of your disaster recovery plan and put it into practice. It is crucial to not only test response to disruptions, but also back up and preventative measures.

For more information about IT disaster recovery planning, contact Sterling Network Services. Request a quote and let us know about your organization's unique requirements.