• Elephant in the Room: Disaster Recovery

    Keeping on topic with how our country is fairing, I thought I would touch on one of the many elephants in the room that often goes unnoticed or is ‘conveniently’ forgotten about. That elephant is named Disaster Recovery, and an organization might be called a ‘Dumbo’ if they don’t have a Disaster Recovery Plan in place.

     

    What Constitutes a Disaster?

    First, what constitutes a disaster in the IT world? A disaster in the IT world is defined by many different categories:

    • Natural Disasters
    • Hardware Error / Thefts
    • Virus / Malware Attacks
    • On-site Disaster (i.e. fire)
    • Power Outages
    • Server Room Environment Issues (i.e. Air conditioner breaks)
    • Unexpected Updates and Patches
    • Human Error

    All of the above seem to be happening on a daily basis. The question is no longer if this is going to happen to an organization, it’s WHEN is it going to happen to an organization? There’s plenty of natural disasters all year long, and they seem to continue to increase in severity.

    Thieves are getting more and more creative and are constantly thinking of innovative ways of hacking into even some of the most fortified infrastructures. Just ask Epsilon, Facebook, Sony, Yahoo, etc. Ransomware is nerve-racking to say the least. An organization could shell out hundreds, if not millions of dollars on the hope of possibly getting data back. Talk about a gamble! You’d have better luck at the Blackjack table. Power Outages seem to be more frequent now than ever. Rolling blackouts seems to be the trend in many states, and it’s only mid-June!

    And, then there is the human race and our ability to be create a cataclysmic mistake because he or she might have been having a bad day. We’ve all been there, and we all know that sometimes the slightest little thing will set us off and put a constraint on our ability to focus on the smallest of details. Even worse, there are many times where an organization knows they need to do something as soon as possible, but instead they try to wish it away or the problem will go away by itself. Disasters are like a Cancer; they aren’t going away unless treated.

    These stats from Markel Insurance Company are shocking and should open some eyes.

     

    disaster recovery

     

    Steps to a Disaster Recovery Plan

    Now, I am not here to sell insurance to you, but to create more awareness out there that if an organization doesn’t have a plan in place, many will be filing unemployment WHEN that day happens.

    Before that plan is created, it may be a good idea to have an overall Disaster Recovery Assessment which will look at a company’s Server, Storage and Network Infrastructure. What usually happens is that a specialized Engineer will be onsite and also remote-in to a specific infrastructure and document the existing environment. From that environment, an Engineer will provide recommendations based on best practices and a ballpark figure of what it’s going to cost to make sure that the Disaster Recovery Plan will minimize the pain from the actual disaster as much as possible.

    There are some organizations out there whose pride is bigger than their brains. Don’t let ego get in the way and be a know-it-all. The reality is that organizations don’t know-it-all. Employees have been doing the work of two or three people since the early 2000s. This Disaster Recovery Plan should not be added to their list of daily duties. Swallow the pride and get a team out there who specializes in Disaster Recovery. They know what to look for, ask the right questions, uncover a weakness or threat that has gone unnoticed and may even reduce the risk of a disaster that was right around the corner.

    I am not an alarmist, but a realist. It’s going to happen to every organization. How prepared are you if it happens tomorrow? Good luck sleeping with that floating around in your head tonight. Contact Zunesis for an assessment of your current environment and for recommendations on Disaster Recovery solutions.

     

    Categories

  • Archives

  • Social

    • GET IN TOUCH

    EMAIL: info@zunesis.com

         

        

    NAVIGATION

    CORPORATE OFFICE

    Zunesis, Inc.
    12303 Airport Way, Suite 100,
    Broomfield, CO 80021
    (720) 221-5200

    Las Vegas
    6671 Las Vegas Blvd S
    Building D Suite 210, Office 260
    Las Vegas, NV 89119
    (702) 837-5300

    Copyright © 2023 Zunesis. All Rights Reserved. | Website Developed & Managed by C. CREATIVE, LLC