To ensure that critical business operations continue during a natural disaster or other emergency, companies must plan and seek an appropriate disaster recovery center for their organization’s needs.
Disaster Recovery Center
A disaster recovery center (DRC) is where an organization’s data backups are stored during an emergency. When a natural disaster or other problem arises, such as a fire, flood, or hurricane, it’s critical that all company files can be accessed from another location to continue business as usual. The DRC typically houses backup servers with hard drives ready and staff prepared to help if technical problems arise.
For large-scale businesses, the DRC needs to accommodate a high volume of equipment with plenty of room to grow and should have climate-controlled conditions. It also requires a stable environment with reliable power supplies and internet access.
A business continuity plan is critical.
Businesses’ most significant challenge when recovering from a disaster is the amount of downtime they experience. When an organization has to shut down its operations in the aftermath of an incident, it can lose a significant amount of money in revenue and productivity. The longer an organization takes to recover, the more these losses accumulate.
A disaster recovery plan is built on two core components:
- Business continuity planning, which outlines how to get your business up and running after a disruption,
- Disaster recovery planning details how to handle specific kinds of disruptions as they occur.
A solid plan should include both; however, many organizations must emphasize developing their business continuity plans more. The most important part of recovering from disruption is getting your company back into working order as quickly as possible. This is only possible if you have taken the time to prepare beforehand.
The Ideal Disaster Recovery Center for Large-Scale Business
The following are some considerations for an ideal Disaster Recovery Center:
- The center’s physical limits should consider natural disasters and man-made incidents such as terrorist attacks.
- The center should have backups to ensure that it can survive disasters, both natural and man-made, such as fire or flood.
- The center should have guards to prevent unauthorized access in case of a disaster or security incident.
- The center should have at least two separate power sources. So that it does not go down during a power outage. Look for their power backup capacity to determine how long this DRC can run during a disaster.
- The center should have at least two separate network connections. It is to prevent network failure if there is an outage.
- Customer service – You want a company that offers excellent customer service, so you can get everything set up without any problems or confusion. You don’t want to spend so much time on the phone with customer support that you must delay your work.
- Expertise – For the center to function as a proper disaster recovery site, it needs the right equipment and staff. The staff should be able to manage all your data. They also must know how to react if something goes wrong, like if you lose power or are hacked.
An ideal disaster recovery center should be built on high ground, away from potential flooding areas. The center must also have proper plumbing and water supply to support the infrastructure needs of the facility. While this may seem like an obvious requirement, it is often overlooked during construction.
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Cloud or On-Premise?
A disaster recovery center typically refers to off-site servers where your data will be stored to prevent data loss in the event of a catastrophe that destroys your main building. In the past, these centers were often located at an entirely different physical site.
Still, with technology becoming cheaper and storage limits growing, most businesses can now store enough data on-site to survive an office fire or flood. They still come in handy in protecting against natural disasters that could destroy a whole city or region, such as earthquakes and floods.
Regarding IT infrastructure, there are two options: on-premise or cloud. An on-premise solution is hosted locally and managed by the organization itself. With a cloud solution, data is stored off-site in a company’s own cloud data center.
Cloud computing provides an easy way for companies to stay on top of disaster recovery. Storing data in the cloud is accessible from anywhere with an internet connection. This means that no matter what happens at the company’s headquarters, they can access their data and continue running their business. Depending on the cloud provider, with some providers, you can even access your data before you’re back in your corporate headquarters.
The decision between choices will depend on specific factors surrounding your organization: how much money you’re willing to spend upfront; how many employees you have; your business continuity needs; and whether it’s essential to have a local enterprise storage team available to you at all times.
Cloud Disaster Recovery Center
The purpose of a cloud DR center is to provide an environment where you can continue operations at another location during a disaster. By replicating the functions of your primary site, the cloud DR center will allow you to restore critical applications and databases if your primary location is no longer available.
A cloud DR center solution includes the following components:
- Cloud-based virtualization platform that allows for provisioning of virtual servers on demand;
- Flexible, scalable storage that ensures access to data and applications;
- Multi-tier application services for continuous processes such as collaboration, email, and messaging; and
- Business continuity planning services provide that all aspects of your organization are prepared for disaster recovery.
Conclusion
Technology has changed how we do business and exposed companies to more vulnerabilities. A strong disaster recovery plan is one of the best ways to mitigate these risks. The result is that your business can continue operating as smoothly as possible, even when faced with a devastating emergency.
Large-scale businesses with remote locations typically have multiple DRCs, but smaller businesses can get away with just one centrally located. When choosing a Disaster Recovery Center, businesses should be aware that you get what you pay for.
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