Conducting a disaster recovery test
SMBs often rely on their IT staffs' knowledge of the environment and feel they are covered in the event of a disaster. But what if the staff is unavailable following a disaster and the company might have to rely on other people that are not as familiar with their IT environment to assist with the recovery effort. This is where all the shortcomings of the disaster recovery plan can be exposed and why it is imperative to test before this happens.
Besides making sure the plan will actually work when needed, regular disaster recovery testing offers other benefits, including:
An opportunity to maintain and update the plan as the environment changes.
A great disaster recovery training opportunity.
A raise in the profile of your disaster recovery program and a heightened awareness within the company.
Test results that can be available for auditors to review.
Learn more about conducting a disaster recovery test.
Disaster recovery planning in a virtualized environment
Because of its ease of deployment and integration, server virtualization can be a highly effective tool for disaster recovery for SMBs. Server virtualization addresses three concerns related to disaster recovery:
Cost: Virtualization allows companies to reduce the number of physical servers they deploy at production and recovery sites.
Procurement delays: Virtualization eliminates most hardware dependencies.
Rapid recovery: Virtualized server images can be rapidly deployed and in some cases, moved across physical systems.
Learn more about using server virtualization for disaster recovery.
