Is your data backed up? Do you have a Disaster Recovery Plan?

Having regular backups is just a part of the process. You have to be confident the backups are healthy and restorable. There is also a common misconception to think that backup and disaster recovery are the same. Many believe that just a backup itself is enough to prevent from data loss in the event of a disaster. However, the backup process is only the beginning stage of the disaster recovery.

In order to guarantee a functioning backup and recovery to the fullest, companies need to have a Disaster Recovery Plan – DRP in place. A DRP is the plan that describes steps and procedures performed in case of unplanned incident. The step-by-step plan consists of checklists and precautions to minimize the effects of a disaster so the business can quickly resume mission-critical functions.

Our Approach to Backup and Recovery

Backup Verification

When was the last time someone has restored data from your backups? Being able to restore from a backup might seem obvious, but often there is a big difference from what you think you have in place versus what you actually have in place.
Ziemen uses backup software that does a test restore for every single backup cycle. We also do scheduled test restores of data to make sure nothing is missed.

Critical Data Backup

With an increasing number of applications and data, it becomes challenging for companies to keep track of important data to be added for backup. It’s important to periodically assess and add/remove apps and data to backup schedule.
Frequent items that are missed from the backup are cloud based emails and storage. Backup of cloud data is as critical as backup of on-site data.

Double Backup

What happens if restore fails when you need it most? Do you have a second plan B in place? Having an on-site and off-site backup will provide best redundancy. In case you need to restore, you want to first restore from on-site backup, as this is faster than off-site. But when there is physical damage or fire to the building, off-site backup is the only way to go. You should always have backup of the backup.

Recovery Time

Ability to get quickly systems up and running after a disaster is critical for many companies.
With a proper backup and disaster recovery solution, you can recover your data in minutes. Recovery time depends on the data to be restored and backup system in place. We always make sure business critical applications are restored first before any other data.

Secure Backup

Data is one of the most valuable resources a company has. Storing a backup of this data has to be secure and accessible only to business entity in question. Ziemen Networks uses strong encryption protocols for each backup cycle off-site upload. Along with device and two factor authentication, access to your backups are secure and only available to you and your techs.

Malware Protection

Another backup best practice that we use is ransomware protection of the backed up data. In a regular backup, if ransomware has encrypted files on a rarely accessed location, the backup of those files will still continue. When you realize you need to restore those files, backup is infected as well. To avoid this scenario, we always get alerts if a backup is found to be infected.