Business continuity solutions are plans designed to quickly restore business operations after a system failure — from network outages to security breaches. Within a 12-month period, the typical small to medium business will suffer six network or server outages, with a median cost of $12,500 per day following a data-loss disaster. In order to mitigate or avoid downtime and data loss, many companies implement business continuity and disaster recovery solutions. Here are some key features of the best business continuity solutions:
Regular Data Backups
Even the most conscientious users don’t save their work as consistently and thoroughly as a business continuity solution does. These regular data backups with continuous protection also occur automatically, which prevents data loss if an unexpected outage should occur.
Virtual Servers
Business continuity solution providers often have virtual servers that can be engaged and deployed to get your network back to working order as quickly as possible. If your business servers crash or networks fail, with the right business continuity solution, your system will be back up and running within hours, instead of days, which is the typical wait time with a traditional backup method.
Legal and Government Regulation Compliance
Violating government rules for protecting sensitive records at the federal level, such as HIPAA, as well as state or local jurisdictions, can bring severe consequences. With a business continuity solution provider, you won’t need to worry about staying up-to-date on compliance, since the provider will do this for you.
Email Recovery
Although email might seem like the least of your worries if a disaster were to occur, emails oftentimes contain critical information that can be easily lost in an outage. The best business continuity solutions will have a recovery feature specifically for emails, if this is not included in the daily data backups.
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
When it comes to data loss in a business, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. With RMM services, your provider will be able to detect a problem before it arises and prevent it from affecting your business.
Questions to ask a Business Continuity Solutions Provider Before Committing:
- Can backed-up data be restored to different kinds of hardware?
- Can both recent and older archived data be restored?
- Are ongoing data backup processes monitored so failures can be diagnosed and remedied before major problems arise?
- Is data automatically backed up both on-site and off-site?
- Is the backup system regularly tested to ensure operation if called to duty?
GFC’s Managed IT Services cover a full spectrum of technology solutions, including remote management of your networks, 24/7 service desk support and business continuity solutions to ensure your company is prepared for any possible disruption. To learn more about our solutions, contact us today.
