Disaster Recovery Plan: Most Effective Method to Protect your Data

A report by IBM estimates the average cost of each lost or stolen data has increased from $141 to $148 in 2018—an increase of almost 5%.

A data disaster can happen due to several reasons such as hardware or software failure, human errors, malware infection, or natural disaster. Moreover, data loss is often sudden and inevitable. Therefore, you need to be prepared for the worst when it comes to data protection.

Disaster Recovery Planning is one such approach towards data protection and data loss prevention. An adequate backup and recovery plan is just one aspect of Disaster Recovery, which can help protect your data from most data loss scenarios, and here’s how.

The significance of a Disaster Recovery Plan

Disaster Recovery Plan is comprised of a systematic process and a structured approach to minimize the aftereffects of a data disaster incident that threatens data, IT infrastructure, and networks, etc.

Disaster Recovery Plan is a logical, sequential step that enables a smooth data recovery process and efficient data restoration. It helps reinstate the normal operations by recovering disrupted systems.

A successful Disaster Recovery Plan begins with practicing the adage “Prevention is better than cure”, and you are ready to withstand any risks. Begin with analyzing and incorporating risk assessment and identify the key elements that will help cancel out the negative effects of unavoidable circumstances.

It also helps determine the specific data that needs backup, along with optimization of resources.

6 Steps to Develop a Better Disaster Recovery Plan

1. Backup all your data:

Backup is an obvious solution and the first step to recovering from data loss. Generally, when we plan something and if it doesn’t work, we also keep a backup plan. Similarly, from a business perspective, it is imperative to have backup plans with respect to data.

There are various methods to back up your files. You can opt for cloud services, or simply purchase an external hard disk, or invest in storage solutions such as RAID.

2. Choose the Right Backup Category

There are mainly three categories for backup:

1. Full Backup
2. Incremental Backup
3. Differential Backup

In full backup—as the name suggests—a copy of the entire data is made every time you perform a backup, which is stored on another media (or set of media). It’s the most basic backup operation and takes much longer to perform subsequent backups. However, as it copies entire data to a single set of media, restoration time is minimal.

The incremental backup is fast and backups only the altered files or new files added or removed to or from a folder with a modified time stamp. The data copied after the first backup is smaller, and thus, it requires less storage. The disadvantage is that the older version of the files is often unavailable.

Then there’s Differential backup which is mostly similar to incremental backup. The only difference is that it copies changed data along with the previous backup. Since it doesn’t replace the older data, the storage and time required for differential backup is more than the incremental backup but far less than a full backup.

However, in all backup operations, one full backup is required. After that, you can continue to backup using either one of the abovementioned backup operations.

Additionally, for an advanced backup approach, you can combine the backup operations such as ‘Full Backup Weekly with Incremental daily’ or ‘differential daily backup’.

3. Plan Effective Backup Strategy

While it’s necessary to choose the right backup category, it’s more vital to choose the right backup strategy. For a better and comprehensive Disaster Recovery Plan, backup availability is highly crucial. Therefore, multiple backups are indispensable.

A fairly popular and reliable backup rule you might have heard is a 3-2-1 backup. Some popular backup vendors and IT pros even highlight their products as 3-2-1 compliant. The backup rule states:

1. Create at least three backup copies
2. Use two different storage media type for backup
3. Store at least one copy of data offsite

Since backups are also stored on storage media such as hard drive, backups are also prone to failure and damage. However, keeping multiple copies at different location ensures the backup is always available even in the event of disasters such as fire, flood, earthquake, etc.

4. Data Recovery Software

A necessary tool that comes handy when the file in the backup or entire backup isn’t available. For instance, in an organization the backup starts at a scheduled time; say 12:00 midnight every week or daily.

During the work hours, the file will be changed, moved, and shared. What if the modified file or folder gets deleted during operational hours? Accidental deletion is more common than you may think. Also, human errors count for the second most common reason for data loss.

Or if system crashes or shutdowns unexpectedly—the drive or volume may turn corrupt, or the file on which you are working might get lost.

In such situations, a data recovery software helps quickly restore the deleted and lost files. However, it’s important that you immediately stop using the system or the drive after data loss to avoid overwriting. A reliable data recovery software can even help you restore data from a severely corrupt drive or volume, quickly.

5. Document Critical Information:

Documenting critical information is a key measure to help resume normal operations, and should be a basic professional and personal responsibility. Additionally, documenting critical information (IT infrastructure, credentials, etc.) makes troubleshooting and restoration easy and more efficient.

In the event of a catastrophic failure, process documentation provides valuable insights and guides a user to reduce the loss. It consists of important components and detailed procedures that are required to resume operations.

Essential components of documentation:

• Credentials needed for admin accounts, cloud server, ISP, networks etc.
• Model and manufacturing details of IT systems and peripherals
• Software license information
• Network settings (IP addresses of all PCs, firewall rules, domain info, server names)
• Clearly labelled backup copies in a consistent manner

The documentation comes handy when those who are familiar with the disaster recovery plan are unavailable. It helps others to understand and implement the disaster recovery plan.

6. Test and Rehearse Disaster Recovery Plan

The most crucial, however, often overlooked, step to create an effective disaster recovery plan is to test the plan. The plan should be audited, regularly. Audits can be done internally or by third-party organizations—like a consultant.

Testing reveals the problems, challenges and loopholes that need to be plugged for a foolproof disaster recovery program.

The Bottom Line

Disaster Recovery Plan is about creating standard operating procedures and practicing preventive measures to be able to respond to catastrophic failures. Backup and recovery is not the only aspect of data protection. However, it’s an integral part of a Disaster Recovery Plan. Therefore, you must implement a comprehensive disaster recovery plan with a reliable backup and recovery system to ensure that the most recent data and changes are being copied securely. Above all, identify the probable worst-case scenarios and come up with contingency plans.