Learn about what you can do to quickly and effectively recover your business' systems in the event of a disruption.

For most small and mid-sized businesses, computing systems and electronic information are necessary to conduct business on a daily basis. You shouldn't have to think about disasters causing you to lose valuable resources and data, but the reality is that the risk of unforeseen circumstances and disruptions to IT systems is always present. If your IT systems go down, it's not only inconvenient, it could cost your business a substantial amount of money. A study by Forrester Research estimated that the average cost of downtime for an e-commerce site is $8,000 per hour.

It is natural to depend on your information systems to be functioning reliably and effectively at all times. Whether your business needs to process certain orders by Christmas Day, or report financial data to the government to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, time is of the essence. By having a recovery system in place, you can help ensure a quick and comprehensive recovery if your business ever faces a disruption or unanticipated problem that shuts down your IT systems.

When thinking about backup and recovery, it is important to recognize that it's not just about data. Many small and mid-sized businesses also rely on access to specific software, customized settings, and operating systems. Today's Windows-based computing environment allows you to implement independent recovery solutions that quickly and effectively recover systems so that you and your employees can get back to business as usual as soon as possible.

Recommendations
Here are some steps to take to help your business recover effectively in the case of a disruption to your business' information systems.

• Create disaster recovery and business continuity plans: It is important to have disaster recovery and business continuity plans in place now, so that you have a systematic way of dealing with problems in the future. Consider creating written documents with specific instructions that you and your employees can easily access.
• Implement independent system recovery solutions: An independent system recovery solution allows you to take advantage of a disk-based, bare-metal Windows system recovery independent of the hardware used and should be implemented on your desktops and servers. Rebuilding your servers can take be painstakingly long. By installing system recovery solutions, you can restore your system quickly, saving you from excessive downtime and the costs associated with lost revenue. In addition, you will save on the cost of professional IT personnel to restore your systems since you will be able to get your system up and running easily. Instead of rebuilding your entire server or desktop, you can restore your systems including data, software, and customized settings, despite any disruptions or problems to your physical infrastructure. You can either restore them to new hardware or your old hardware once it has been repaired.
• Test your disaster recovery plan: Once you have a disaster recovery plan in place, it is important to test it so that you and your employees will know what to expect if you ever have to use it in a disaster situation. Additionally, when you test it, your findings will help you customize your plan based on the specific needs of your business. Several things to keep in mind when testing your plan include: knowing how long it will take to retrieve a server backup; being able to access data even if you can't get to the office; and being able to access uncorrupted copies of software if the system shut down because of a computer bug.

Conclusion
Disaster recovery planning is not a glamorous task, but in today's IT intensive business climate, it is a necessary part of a successful business strategy. Independent system recovery helps you not only recover data, it helps you save and restore your software, customized settings, and even your operating systems. This way, even a malfunction that causes losses to your hardware will not be a problem; you can quickly and easily restore your business functionality to another system. By implementing an independent system recovery solution, you can save your business precious time and money, and possibly the business itself.

from Symantec