“From ash clouds causing flight cancellations to floods blocking motorways, a business continuity plan can go a long way in minimising impact of a minor disaster to the bottom line. But in some situations when IT systems are at risk, having business continuity in place isn’t just convenient; it can prove essential in avoiding financial disaster.
Despite the importance, it seems to be a challenge for many growing businesses. A Symantec survey in September 2009 found that 47 per cent of SMBs do not have a formal disaster preparedness plan and for businesses that do, there is a large discrepancy between how they perceive their disaster readiness and their actual level of preparedness. To prevail in disaster readiness, back-up and recovery should be a crucial part of that business continuity plan.
Possible obstacles for businesses might be that they are still facing increased budget challenges this year that may seem to take priority over a business continuity plan. But back up and recovery options aren’t just for disaster preparation; they also have the potential to offer an alternative to buying more storage for growing information stores by integrating deduplication capabilities. Through deduplication, a business can continue to use its existing storage, protect more data, and reduce overall complexity by removing redundant data before sending it to its disaster recovery site.
It is clear that for any business, having a plan to deal with downtime from any reason, be it a virus or hacker attack, power outage or natural disaster, can prove essential for the business to recover quickly and reduce loss. Through technologies like integrated deduplication and archiving, a business can protect more data while reducing storage and management costs, making disaster recovery an affordable addition to a business continuity plan.”