Thursday, March 17, 2011

The Importance of Data Recovery as Part of a Risk Management Plan

One of the most important aspects of running a business is your risk management plan. Understanding the risks facing your business can help you avoid unwanted costs and reduce the chance that your company will face a devastating loss. Most major companies understand the importance of having a data recovery risk management plan in place to ensure against the loss of their important data. Do you?

Why Data Loss Can Be a Major Risk for Your Business

No matter what your business is, data is part of the grease that keeps the wheels in motion. Your computer, including disks, hard drives and any removable media you use, including CDs, DVDs, USB drives and Zip drives, contain essential information about your customers, your inventory, your accounts and your business. Imagine for a moment what would happen if you lost even part of that information to hard drive failure or a trashed CD. How many hours would it take you to re-compile your current inventory? How about putting together billing statements without your accounts receivable and accounts paid records? How would the loss of information about your customers like their billing information, their order histories and contact details, hurt your business?

If you’ve never considered these scenarios, you may not understand how important it is to manage the risks associated with your databases and other important software. The fact is, the loss of even one important backup record could cost your business hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

Data Recovery as Part of a Risk Management Plan

Prevention is the best option, of course. Your risk management plan should include:

  • Safeguarding data with virus protection and security measures to avoid data theft
  • Backing up all data regularly – preferably at least once a day
  • Using best practices for redundant data records using a RAID assembly
  • Ensuring offsite backup of all your data so that you can recover it if something happens to your primary source
  • Protecting your data media physically from cold, wet, heat and other conditions that can damage your drives physically
  • Insurance to cover the costs of data recovery efforts if your drives or disks are damaged despite your best efforts

If all of your efforts don’t prevent the worst from happening and you end up with an inaccessible disk or media that you can’t get into, avoid doing anything that night compromise your drive further. Most self-help data recovery efforts actually make the problem worse and make it harder for a professional data recovery firm to recover your important information. Instead, contact an expert data recovery firm, such as Fields Data Recovery immediately so that they can get at the disk and bring your data back.

No comments:

Post a Comment