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10 Things To Consider When It Comes To Disaster Recovery

Forbes Technology Council
POST WRITTEN BY
Mike Fuhrman

Last year’s hurricane season was one for the record books. Storms battered the Southeastern U.S., the Gulf Coast and the Caribbean with unrelenting rain, floods and winds causing billions of dollars worth of damage. In the aftermath, people and businesses were left to pick up the pieces -- and many regions are still recovering. The effort to rebuild will take a significant amount of time and resources, but in thinking of the damages done, it’s critical that people and businesses heed the lessons of Harvey, Irma and Maria to plan ahead and protect themselves in the future.

Just as you would stock your home with supplies and prepare your property ahead of a storm, it is vital for businesses to understand their risk profile to ensure the availability and redundancy of their information technology (IT) operations before any natural disaster wreaks havoc. A good first step is for businesses to partner with a data center provider, but how do you know you’ve chosen the kind of partner who can handle any challenge a massive storm presents? Organizations must be confident their data center provider has a solid emergency response plan in place to ensure their own operational integrity, as well as the security and availability of their most important data.

Here are ten considerations to keep in mind when choosing a disaster recovery (DR) provider.

1. Begin planning for an emergency long before it happens. You must put considerable effort into advanced planning. Make sure your data center provider uses a thorough and systematic program that combines preventative maintenance, infrastructure monitoring, staff training and assessments. These initial steps lay the groundwork for minimizing and even avoiding potential downtime.

2. Focus on location. Preparedness begins with choosing a data center in the right location. When evaluating providers, be sure to ask questions such as does the provider offer the geographic diversity necessary to ensure its customers can continue operations through other facilities if their primary data center is disabled? Are data centers located outside of flood zones and away from fault lines?

3. Ensure redundancy. To sustain an uninterrupted power supply, your provider should utilize redundant uninterruptable power supply (UPS) systems and generators -- each with N+1 configurations. Multiple computer room air conditioning units with N+1 configurations maintain a sufficiently regulated IT environment if one cooling system goes down.

4. Preventative maintenance is important. Make sure your provider is proactively protecting its critical systems to optimize performance and availability for its customers. Regular preventative maintenance and testing should be performed on key emergency systems like generators, UPSs, cooling systems, fire detection and suppression systems.

5. Look at the physical security of operations. Does your data center provider’s staff monitor its network and facilities 24/7/365 to ensure the safety and security of its operations? It is important to have eyes and ears on the ground as it can be a key component in their ability to effectively mitigate damage.

6. Always have a backup plan. It’s always a good idea to maintain relationships with outside vendors to ensure someone has your back in the event of a disaster. A good data center provider will have strong relationships with multiple Tier One internet providers, in case they need to quickly transition between carriers without service interruption should one carrier go down.

7. Check your data center has multiple fuel providers. Having generators won’t matter if your fuel supply chain breaks down. Make sure your data center provider has at least three fuel providers -- two in-state and one out-of-state -- to service data centers during an extended outage.

8. Test your plan. While built-in redundancy, maintenance programs and ongoing monitoring lay the foundation for continued operations during a disaster, having the appropriate plan in place is only half the battle. Make sure your provider regularly tests its plans for emergency preparedness, response and recovery through live exercises during normal operations. There’s no such thing as being too prepared.

9. Establish a 'go team.' When a natural disaster threatens a facility, it is important for a provider to have an established geo-diverse group of individuals who are highly trained and experienced in network and data center operations and emergency response. This team should participate in intense training to hone their preparedness for any situation and members should be cross-trained to perform multiple roles to ensure operational redundancy in an emergency. The go team can be used to relieve local teams, allowing them to focus on keeping their homes and families safe.

10. Don’t forget about backup supplies. Make sure your provider has the supplies to support your employees if they need to remain at the data center throughout the storm. Nothing says “We value our customers” like keeping a pantry stocked with food, water, bedding and other necessary provisions.

You can even take your organization one step further, by enlisting the help of a trusted vendor who can provide an added layer of support during a storm or natural disaster. Consider these added measures to support your DR planning efforts:

• Business continuity and DR software: Consider a solution capable of protecting, recovering and mobilizing applications on virtualized IT environments, including public, private and hybrid clouds.

• A cloud data management platform: Hybrid cloud enterprises need to orchestrate data in a way that is easy to manage and future-proof.

• Additional data protection: Whether you operate at a mid-size or enterprise-level-system size, you need a partner that can deliver flexible solutions that best fit your organization’s needs. Find a provider that offers data protection and information management solutions that can help turn your data into a powerful strategic asset your organization can access safely and securely.

Ensuring your DR provider, a third-party vendor or your IT organization has a solid plan in place to deal with disasters -- both natural and man-made -- must be a top priority. If not, you risk not only the safety of your data and applications but of your entire business.

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