
The Difference Between Disaster Recovery and Data Backup
In IT services, disaster recovery and data backup are often conflated since they both refer to tasks that are essential to keeping your business running when an unplanned interruption causes you to lose sensitive and important data. However, these two terms are not synonyms. While having appropriate data backup and a maintaining a comprehensive disaster recovery plan for data loss are both important, they are distinct solutions that both need to be handled with the proper attention from companies investing in data protection and business continuity.
Data backup is essential to your business. It is not efficient or even functional to have your business shut down and cease functioning because one set of files becomes corrupted or is deleted. Having the raw data your company needs to keep going on a day-to-day basis is not something you can put at risk. However, disaster recovery is much more than just data backup. Disaster recovery is a detailed plan and strategy that allows your entire business infrastructure to maintain itself even under the duress of a natural or man-made disaster. When you have an appropriate disaster recovery plan in place, that means your business will be able to keep running even in the event a hurricane, tornado, or a severe cyberattack disrupts your existing infrastructure.
Disaster Recovery Prepares You For Anything
While data backup is often about simply making sure specific essential files are safe, disaster recovery is much more complex. With disaster recovery consulting and services, you are looking at the building blocks of the services your company provides. Comprehensive disaster recovery strategies ensure that even in a case where your IT infrastructure is threatened, you’ll be able to being operating again quickly and efficiently. There is more to a business’s technological function than simple data files. With disaster recovery services in place, a company will be able to get every piece of the business running again, including the settings of all its applications, operating system configuration and more. Unfortunately, many don’t realize how much more disaster recovery planning is than simply having cold data stored somewhere safe.
A business’s Disaster Recovery Plan (or DRP) is complex and should not be handled without the proper consultation of IT support experts. The steps in developing one involve analysis, design, implementation and testing. The complete disaster recovery planning process is a serious undertaking that requires significant expertise. Even when a DPR is in place, it requires maintenance and continuous updating. As elements of a business’s infrastructure change, so too must the company’s DRP to account for the evolving nature of the company. Once data backup is finished, the data can sit in cold storage until the backup is needed, but complete disaster recovery plans are dynamic and require consistent work to maintain.
If your business is concerned about a natural disaster or nasty cyberattacks, you should make sure to invest in appropriate and complete disaster recovery solutions now. Contact disaster recovery experts at TekConcierge and allow us to guide you through the process that will ensure your business infrastructure stays intact even in the worst of situations.