Business Continuity Considerations
In Part 1 of this series, I showed that every Small & Medium Sized Businesses should seriously consider what to do in case of system failure or business interruption or disaster.
In Part 2, I will discuss issues that you should consider before settling on any system to ensure Business Continuity for your business.
Now, Let’s make some points to consider about your system:
Network Hardware (Servers, PC’s, etc.):
- Hardware warranties don’t recover your data
- Hardware warranties don’t get you operational again.
- If your hardware is more than 12 months old, the chances are that you will have to replace any failed components with newer technology. Do you know if your existing backup technology will even work with new hardware?
- How long will it take to rebuild your system to operational status if replacement hardware is required in case of disaster? The reality is that most Network Server replacements will take at least 3 to 4 days to be operational. Can you afford to be offline for that long? How much business or credibility will you lose? How much lost wages in lost productivity while your staff wait around for you to be up and running again?
Data Loss Prevention :
- When was your last successful backup?
- Does it include ALL of your data?
- We all know best practices are to TEST your backup. But how do you ? Do you have spare hardware or the time to do this?
- If your server died at 3pm today and your backup was last night:
- How many email-based deals / quotes / customer discussions could ALL of your staff re-create from memory?
- How much goodwill would you lose if you couldn’t recreate an email from an important customer. Is there a chance you could lose business / goodwill / productivity?
- What was the details of the last invoice or supplier payment keyed into MYOB ? Do you remember where you were up to?
- What is all of this really worth to your bottom line?
Sensible Business Solutions has developed a Sensible Recovery System which will help your dramatically reduce the impact of any Business Interruption or failure . Contact Sensible for more details.
In Part 3, we will further explore one of the techniques that you probably have in place right now and the weaknesses that you should keep in mind.
Email Kevin Spanner: info@sensible.com.au
