Disaster Readiness For Small And Medium Business
A study from 2011 by Symantec reported that most businesses don’t have a disaster plan in place. In fact, 41% said that it never even occurred to them to have one and about the same number said that a disaster plan wasn’t a priority. Other studies have reported that the median cost of downtime for a small business is over $12,500 per day. Less than half back up data on a weekly basis and only 23% back up daily. Other businesses reported their disaster plans were in place but had never been tested.
- Start planning now: Develop a disaster preparedness plan today. Evaluate how strategic technologies such as mobile, virtualization and cloud can help in those efforts.
- Implement strategic technologies: Adopt integrated cloud backup for offsite storage and disaster recovery, and automated physical to virtual (P2V) backup conversion so you can recover your physical system to a virtual machine in case of a server failure.
- Protect your information: Use comprehensive security and backup solutions to protect your physical, virtual and mobile systems. You may even opt to backup to the cloud.
- Review and test your disaster preparedness: This should be completed at least once a quarter.
The 2012 Report from Symantec has some useful advice about using technology as the key weapon in SMB disaster preparedness:
So how would your business fare with more than one day away, with no current data, or a disaster plan that just didn’t work?
Other information that may spur you into action: Of those companies with no plan in place 43% will never reopen and only 29% of them remain open after two years.
There are other resources available to advise and recommend steps to take to get ready.
So get ready for a disaster. Because it probably will happen. And even if you think you’re prepared, you may be surprised. Dan Simon, president of Cognito, a marketing and PR firm, has a great article on the Forbes website about what was done right and wrong during Hurricane Sandy.
