Business continuity: protecting critical data

Business continuity goes hand-in-hand with the old adage — no one plans to fail; they fail to plan! 

No matter the industry, business leaders know they need to protect themselves and their data from the various threats that can disrupt operations, but creating a well-constructed business continuity plan (BCP) to achieve that goal can seem overwhelming. The good news is that if you partner with a trusted IT security provider and succeed at putting one in place, it provides a competitive edge and dramatically minimizes stress if a disaster occurs.

In our personal lives, most of us have a sound financial plan, trust, or will in place to protect our family in case something happens. You need the same proactive plan to protect another important possession: YOUR COMPANY DATA. Along with your employees, it’s your most valuable asset! Without it, your business is immobilized. Losing data wreaks havoc and creates undue stress on you and your business. Enter the business continuity plan. This – along with a cyber insurance policy – gives you the resources you need when you need them.

If your IT technology fails and operations halt, your BCP is ready and waiting. It delivers the resilience you’ll need to maintain cash flow, customer trust, and future growth.

Types of threats

Data can be compromised due to both natural and human threats, both of which can ultimately lead to data loss and downtime. Data backup, recovery services, and regular testing will ensure that your business remains operational in any unforeseen circumstances.

Good BCPs focus on data security, backup, and recovery to fortify daily operations against threats. They minimize downtime, improve client satisfaction, save you money, and ensure operations resume as fast as possible.

• Cyberattacks: These pose one of the most significant risks, capable of crippling your business for days to weeks and negatively impacting company reputation
• Data deletion: Accidents happen! Mistakes from inattentive or distracted staff can be as damaging as cyber threats
• Hardware failures: If your servers or infrastructure go down, so do your employees. Accidents or outages involving employee access to company assets, along with software corruption, are both disabling and expensive
• Natural disasters, outages, and pandemics: Floods, storms, and utility outages can destroy servers and cause interruptions. Pandemics fall into this category as well and can impact data protection if you’re not using a reliable provider or have a robust disaster recovery plan in place

Protection from the unexpected

Data backup, system recovery, and regular testing are pivotal services included in a good plan that will protect your business from unexpected risks. Just as you wouldn’t drive without auto insurance, you shouldn’t run a business without a reliable BCP. 

The services you choose should use industry-leading solutions, which will create images of all your servers (application, domain controller, file, exchange, and terminal) and store them on protected offsite servers, ensuring quick and efficient data recovery in case of disruptive incidents.

Regardless of business size, they should address several issues:

• 24/7 accessibility: uninterrupted access to deliver continuous productivity
• Security encryption: data tools that are encrypted and protected from external intruders
• Data storage and recovery: automated backups (local/remote)
• Recovery Time Objective (RTO): defined to meet your recovery time requirements. What is your time objective to recovery? Do you need to recover data within 15 minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours, a day, or 3-5 days?
• Recovery Point Objective (RPO): at what point in time will you need to recover? Your data retention policy and storage requirements should meet your specific needs
• Regular Testing: BCPs must be proven effective through regular testing to verify they meet company goals and desired outcomes for uptime

Backup vs. Disaster Recovery as a Service DRaaS

Backup is not the same as disaster recovery, or Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS). Which do you need? Your company should consider DRaaS if you:

• Rely on mission-critical applications and data
• Want to be up and operational in 15 minutes
• Are subject to regulated compliance requirements
• Are partners in stringent supply chains
• Are located in disaster-prone areas
• Lack technical resources or disaster recovery experience
• Rely heavily on IT for business functions
• Require a high uptime based on client, business, or industry needs

Another area to consider is how key functional areas break out for your business:

Don’t plan to fail!

Business continuity and IT are intertwined. A good data protection defense is to work with a reputable IT security provider that translates potential disruptions into manageable workflows to preemptively deal with issues. They will share their expert advice to identify threats, build strategies, meet desired uptime outcomes, and implement countermeasures so you can run your business effectively and efficiently in 2025.

Start the year with total peace of mind with a free business continuity consult at pcgit.com/contact.

David Hodgdon is the CEO and founder of PCGiT in Portsmouth.