It’s the process of following a set of policies and procedures, as well as using certain tools, to effectively enable the recovery or continuation of key business infrastructure, in the event of either a natural or man-made disaster. For businesses that rely heavily on IT systems for their day to day operations, there’s absolutely no excuse not to have a disaster recovery plan in place (so if you don’t, now’s a good time to get one!).

However, in the changing landscape of IT, especially with the rise of cloud-based IT solutions and more advanced technologies, now could be the time to update that existing disaster recovery plan to make sure it’s still fit for purpose. 

Why should better tech make a difference to disaster recovery planning?

Well first and foremost is the common misconception that as technology gets better, the potential for disasters and service disruptions will decrease. In fact, the opposite is true and there are several reasons why that’s the case.

For one thing, as technology gets better more and more of us start to use it, the pool of potential business systems at risk of a disaster is greater and so the vulnerabilities increase. Additionally, just embracing new technology alone is not enough to avoid disaster, it has to be properly managed and maintained in order to remain fully operational and secure. Often as businesses virtualise more and more of their systems, they fail to also upscale the management and support for those systems and that’s when data can be lost and disaster can strike.

Finally, and this is an issue we talk about a lot on the Dynamic Networks blog, is the rise of the mobile workforce and consumer base. That means more and more people are accessing services and IT infrastructure from mobile and smart devices and that brings a number of risks including potential security breaches as well as just poor performance.

That means today’s disaster recovery plans need to work effectively across mixed environments, twenty-four seven and accommodate increasing business complexities, a greater reliance on technology altogether and an increased dependency on third parties.

Is your disaster recovery plan ready for an update? Let’s talk. Or see here for more information on how we can get you back on your feet.