Five Keys to Ensuring Business Continuity

You get only one chance to respond to a weather catastrophe. According to Al Berman, senior vice president and leader of the national business continuity management practice at Marsh, IT organizations of every size should test their disaster recovery strategies regularly. He offers the following tips.

1. Back up all critical data at least daily, including data to redundant servers, network drives, and tape or optical drives. Backups should be performed more frequently for data that cannot be reconstructed from any other source.

2. Back up laptops and ensure that critical data is not stored on C drives but is stored to network servers that are backed up and stored offsite. Many businesses fail to realize the importance of data stored locally on laptops. Due to their mobile nature, they can easily be lost or damaged.

3. Maintain copies of all backups offsite. This is especially important if an entire server is damaged or destroyed. SmartSync Software, Sun Microsystems and Veritas Software provide software that automatically backs up data to an offsite server daily.

4. Schedule regular reviews of computer security to help prevent unauthorized access, modification or deletion of data.

5. Create a disaster recovery plan as part of a comprehensive business continuity plan.