Free-Backup.info

Disaster Recovery, a race against time!

Data keeps changing with passing time, which makes keeping pace with the changing data one of the most important challenges before data security/disaster recovery officials. In the case of any enterprise, logical environment is something that is in a state of constant flux, being changed and redefined with the passage of every hour depending on the various requirements of time.

One of the important aspects of any disaster recovery plan is a sensible backup plan for making redundant copies of all critical files of the company database. Apart from making constantly updated backups, the disaster recovery plan should also take into account all the critical changes in the logical environment as it might be of supreme importance at the hour of reconstruction after a tragic disaster and data loss.

Backups can become obsolete, making disaster recovery impossible

The fact that logical environment composed of various bits and pieces of data are ever changing means that there is all the possibility of backup becoming obsolete unless extreme care is taken. This problem of obsolete backup marring the prospects of successful disaster recovery can be avoided only if there is a real time backup. This calls for the right installation of right infrastructure in place, which everybody can afford to, especially small business houses that is willing to set aside only meager sums for data security budget!

Take for example the common scenario of new software being installed at the instance of a particular department in the enterprise for a specific purpose. It could be new accounting software or new human resource management software. With the installation of such a new software the logical environment undergoes a critical transformation and the backup plan may need to be updated and refined to take into account the new development. Only such a refined and updated backup that accounts for the changes in the logical environment will be useful in a picture perfect disaster recovery.

Not just the backup but also the entire disaster recovery plan needs refining and updating

Like in the instance of backups, the change in logical environment as well as other relevant factors, the disaster recovery plan needs to be constantly updated and refined to be of any constructive use during crises. More often than not, what happens is that once bare bones disaster recovery plan is in place, those concerned with it tend to push it to the freezer and get on with things of "greater importance"!

But know this now, and without any delay that a workable and up-to-date disaster recovery plan is as important as any other work in a logical environment consisting of large amounts of critical data. Considering the mere existence of a disaster recovery plan to be enough can prove to be a costly mistake in the event of a disaster. Even a seemingly successful disaster recovery may not be able to reconstruct the logical environment as it was before the disaster struck, unless the disaster recovery plan was reviewed frequently to incorporate necessary changes.

Lison Joseph is a contributor at Free-backup.info -- the home of the popular Amazon S3 based online backup solution -- Back2zip. This article is also at http://free-backup.info/update-and-refine-the-disaster-recovery-plan.html