A recent survey conducted by Rubicon Consulting Inc. and funded by Symantec Corp. revealed that half of SMBs have lost critical business data, and nearly a third of those companies lost sales or customers as a direct result of disasters.
To help you stay up to date on the latest disaster recovery technologies, we've compiled our best tips on DR and business continuity for SMBs in one place. Learn about how to conduct a
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risk
assessment, how often to have a DR test, what you need in BC plan, and about outsourcing
disaster recovery services.
Conducting
a risk assessment for SMBs
Gaining an understanding of the kind of impact an unplanned outage or disaster can have on an IT
environment is crucial to selecting which technology must be deployed to reduce or mitigate that
impact. This is usually done through a business impact analysis (BIA). Learn the importance of conducting
a risk assessment for SMBs and how to determine risk in disaster recovery planning in this
tip.
What
you need in a DR plan
Recent reports indicate that as many as half of all SMBs lack a business continuity or disaster
recovery (DR) plan. Those who do formulate plans often discover they lack certain information or
coverage when a disaster strikes. Learn about what you
need in a disaster recovery plan.
Disaster
recovery sites: How to choose the correct location
There is not a one-size-fits-all solution or magic formula that will allow you to plug in your
problems and give you a magic distance for your alternative data center. This article provides some
guidelines to help you decide how to
choose the right location for your DR site.
Conducting
a disaster recovery test for SMBs
Besides making sure the plan will actually work when needed, regular DR testing offers other
benefits, including:
- An opportunity to maintain and update the plan as the environment changes
- A great DR training opportunity
- A raise in the profile of your DR program and a heightened awareness within the company
- Test results that can be available for auditors to review
In this tip, learn how to have a successful DR test in in an SMB environment.
Disk-based
data backup and recovery for SMBs
As storage capacity needs grow in SMBs, disk is increasingly being used as a backup storage target.
In this FAQ, Executive Editor and Independent Backup Expert W. Curtis Preston discusses the role of
disk-based backup in the SMB space. You can also download his interview on disk
backup for SMBs.
How to
establish a recovery time objective
What does recovery time objective (RTO) exactly mean? We find this acronym in just about every
discussion, brochure or write up about data backups or disaster recovery. Understand how to
establish an RTO in this article.
Disaster
recovery fundamentals FAQ
Disaster recovery impacts all aspects of IT, including storage, networking, data center management
and data security. In this FAQ guide, listen to the answers to the most common questions about DR
fundamentals.
Business
continuity and disaster recovery outsourcing tutorial
Outsourcing disaster recovery and business continuity (BC) services can save you money and increase
productivity by transferring some IT functions to experienced third parties, but it also has its
downsides. Learn about whether or not you should outsource DR services in our business
continuity and disaster recovery outsourcing tutorial.
Using
a tabletop exercise for disaster recovery planning
A tabletop disaster recovery exercise provides a practical checklist of procedures to follow during
a disaster. Learn about the critical procedures and planning documents needed to ensure every
disaster scenario has been covered in your business and why
tabletop DR exercises are helpful.
Best
practices for selecting a disaster recovery facility
Based on the size and needs of your business, you need to determine what type of disaster recovery
facility to use; an in-house facility using another office location; a collocation facility; or a
managed collocation space. Learn how about best
practices for selecting a disaster recovery facility .
If you want to learn even more about data protection for SMBs, bookmark
our special section on data backup for SMBs.
This was first published in March 2009