As I watched the recent California wildfires on TV, I can’t help but think about how I would be able to recover from a disaster such as a wildfire.
Aside from clothing, food, and water, items often overlooked are passports, birth certificates, photographs and other important documents, some of which take time to replace while others are irreplaceable. Although some people may have a fire and waterproof safe, an extra layer of protection would not hurt.
Today’s technology, such as Cloud storage and networking, offers an alternative to having hard copies. However, not all Cloud storage is equal and affordable.
For personal effects, the Cloud offers a viable solution . Copies of items to store onto the Cloud may include :
- Social Security cards
- Marriage certificates
- Birth certificates
- Adoption papers
- Divorce papers
- Will and Last testament documents
- Living Will
- Power of Attorney
- Identification cards
- Naturalization papers
- Passports
- Proof of benefits
- Property titles
- Financial accounts
- Photographs
Simply scanning copies of these documents onto the Cloud will help minimize your loss from a disaster. One option is to buy your own private, personal cloud storage. Companies such as Google offers personal cloud storage at an affordable price.
For businesses, it’s even more devastating if documents are lost in a disaster. The ability for a business to recover and operate from a disaster is crucial for its survival. This is especially important for small to medium sized businesses because most are ill-prepared for a disaster.
When I worked for a high-tech company several years ago, I was part of a Global Disaster Recovery team. Being part of a team with such critical responsibility taught me the importance of quickly resuming operations from a disaster.
Before creating a plan, all segments of a business need to be analyzed. Analyzing business applications is most important to run an establishment and recovery time.
Determining a recovery strategy, a business must consider the following:
- Site location(s)
- Security
- Resources such as staff
- Finances
- Network services
- Business applications
- Hardware such as technology or machineries
- Data
- Suppliers
Another option is to find a good vendor that offers a Disaster Recovery as a Service or DRaaS. With DRaaS, your downtime is significantly reduced because your data does not need to be restored over the internet.
A lot of small and medium sized businesses lack expertise necessary to configure and test an efficient recovery plan. Utilizing a DRaaS company reduces the cost and maintenance of such an environment.
Not all Disaster Recovery companies are the same. In order to find one that best fits your business, the following should be considered:
- What is the provider’s policy and procedure when a disaster strikes your business
- How will users access data in the event of a disaster
- What resources are available upon recovery
- How does the provider update, manage and track resources
- Upon disaster, what resources are available to you
- How long has the provider been in the business of data recovery
Some items to consider are more technical for the average business owner. This is where Konnect Up Solutions can help.
Call us at (510) 972-3028 for more information or visit us at www.konnectupsolutions.com
