Three Different Types of Alternate Sites and What They Each Include Business Continuity
One of the key elements in any Disaster Recovery plan is the selection of a secondary site for data storage to help prevent data loss in the event of cyber attacks or a natural disaster. DR software will extract critical business data from this secondary site and restore it back to primary servers in the event of a major system failure. There are three major types of disaster recovery sites that can be used: cold, warm, and hot sites. Understanding the differences among these three can help SMBs, working in cooperation with an expert IT consultant, to select the one that best suits company needs and mission-critical business operations.
- Cold Computing Sites - the most simplistic type of disaster recovery site. A cold site consists of elements to provide power and networking capability as well as cooling. It does not include other hardware elements such as servers and storage. The use of a cold site is very limiting to a business since before it can be used, backup data along with some additional hardware must be sent to the site and installed. This will impede workflow.
- Warm Computing Sites - contain all the elements of a cold site while adding to them additional elements including storage hardware such as tape or disk drives along with both servers and switches. Warm sites are "ready to go" in one sense, but they still need to have data transported to them for use in recovery should a disaster occur.
- Hot Computing Sites - a fully functional backup site that already has important data mirrored to it. This is the ideal disaster recovery site but can be challenging to attain.
Why Are Disaster Recovery Solutions Important?
1 . Network Downtime Is Expensive
If your employees or customers lose access to business-critical applications and data, there will be a direct impact onproductivity and revenue. Let's say your business has 100 employees, the average hourly revenue is $1,500 and the backup data set amounts to 2 TB. Given these parameters, a full restore from a local backup would take over 8 hours. The associated downtime cost would amount to $34,000 in lost revenue. Modern BCDR products offer the ability to run applications from backup instances of virtual servers. This allows users to continue operations while primary application servers are restored.
2. Data Backup Isn't Sufficient on its Own
You'd be hard-pressed to find a business today that doesn't conduct some form of data backup. But what happens if your primary servers are irrevocably damaged? That's why it's essential to send copies of business data offsite. Modern BCDR products can run applications from backup instances of virtual servers, and some canextend this capability to the cloud. This approach is frequently called cloudDR or disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS). The ability to run applications in the cloud while onsite infrastructure is restored is widely considered to be a game-changer for disaster recovery. Backup and business continuity are not the same - and your business needs both.
3. Data Disasters Take Many Forms
Most IT downtime is a result ofcommon, everyday actionslike accidental (or intentional) data deletion, damage to computer hardware, and poor security habits. For example, a recent OWI Labs survey found that 81% of respondents occasionally or regularly log into public wifi, in spite of security risks. A ransomware attack or virus can halt operations just as easily as a natural disaster. These are typically the result of human error, but are preventable with BCDR planning and ongoing employee training.
4. Business Continuity Impacts Everyone
Ensuring access to applications and data following a disaster is just one piece of a successful BCDR strategy. Thorough BCDR planning should assess your business as a whole, and many planning efforts begin with an impact analysis or risk assessment. These studies can reveal weaknesses in your business's ability to continue operations. BCDR is a company-wide responsibility, and failure to protect your business from human error and system failures can be detrimental. Fortunately, by working with a skilled Managed Services Provider (MSP), you can avoid the fallout of poor BCDR planning. If you're looking for more information about BCDR strategies, or are interested in a risk assessment, reach out to iCorps fora free consultation.
Source: https://blog.icorps.com/bid/101789/types-of-disaster-recovery-sites