Most small to medium-sized proprietors are familiar with business continuity planning (BCP). But what is disaster recovery testing? IT disaster recovery planning (DRP) plays a vital role in developing a reliable BCP. Effective planning represents the surest path to recovering your critical business information immediately after a disastrous IT event.
As you develop your business continuity plan, implementing a comprehensive disaster recovery testing initiative is essential. In the following brief guide, we discuss common disaster scenarios before exploring why your existing BCP should include disaster recovery testing.
What constitutes an IT disaster?
Any definition of the word “disaster” is elusive. The term’s average dictionary description always excludes the subjective element of what sufficiently constitutes a disaster. In the world of IT, there are several specific disaster types that impact businesses routinely. Let’s take a look at a few of them here:
Natural disasters
Earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, tornadoes, mudslides, and hurricanes each fall under the natural disaster category. This disaster type originates in climate events and other unforeseen effects attributable to severe weather. Without notice, natural disasters throw unsuspecting businesses into a fiscal tailspin. Whenever natural disasters strike, supply chains fall apart, workers can’t commute to their employment sites, and valuable infrastructure is subject to physical damage.
Technology disasters
Technology disasters can impact businesses profoundly, and, depending on your geographic location, occur more frequently than natural disasters. Malfunctioning technology traced to server problems and network security breaches is almost always ascribable to human error or targeted malice. Technology disasters are usually instigated by human operators, who serve almost exclusively as the sole identifiable cause of these catastrophic IT incidents.
Global health crises and other emergencies
While the COVID-19 pandemic might qualify as a natural disaster, we’ve categorized it under “other emergencies” because the potential sources for IT catastrophes such as this one are inexhaustible. Phenomena like COVID won’t physically damage your assets as much as they disrupt your supply chain and grind your standard operating procedures to a halt after little advanced warning. Companies that continued to operate during the pandemic have already learned that pivoting on short notice can be as expensive as it is confusing. That’s why planning for one-off emergencies like a global infection is a must.
Why disaster recovery testing is necessary
Organizations that invest significant time and resources into developing a disaster recovery plan should know how well it works. Disaster recovery testing is the most reliable means of determining whether or not you’ve met your pre-established recovery point objective and recovery time objective goals. When you administer disaster recovery testing, you gain real-time visibility into the effectiveness of your standing business continuity strategy. This additional insight means you can adapt your disaster recovery plan to address the most current threats to your business.
IT requirements constantly change while the components that make it work are inherently static. Each time you initiate a change or upgrade one of your systems, you need to, at the very least, retest your network several times. If you’re currently managing all of your own IT, you already know that servers and storage systems require constant maintenance and new technology upgrades.
For that good reason, more companies than ever are migrating to the cloud. But for those that haven’t, the question still lingers -how do you keep up with the costs of maintaining your IT infrastructure and sustain continuous operations? Disaster recovery testing ensures your business always remains ahead of devastation in an ever-changing IT environment that is increasingly difficult to predict.
Are you considering disaster recovery testing?
Business continuity plans are unique to every organization, and no two are exactly alike. Before getting started with disaster recovery testing, consider partnering with PCH Technologies to complete a comprehensive analysis of your systems. We identify any potential vulnerabilities and establish the bar for restoring standard operating procedures at your facilities.
Our specialized recovery team looks at your IT infrastructure in detail while generating a log of every available resource on the network to establish which data they contain and how to consolidate these elements to expedite recovery. While every organization must get back up and running as soon as possible, understanding your critical thresholds for recovery times helps set business priorities. For example, which data is essential to your operations? Typically companies prioritize financial and compliance information first.
Searching for additional disaster recovery testing info?
Let PCH Technologies give you more peace of mind in knowing that your IT won’t be the cause of your next steep and unexpected business expense. We take the extra steps to ensure your operations are scarcely interrupted, irrespective of the complexity of your IT predicament. Discover more about implementing disaster recovery testing by filling out a new customer inquiry online now or dialing (856) 754-7500.