Effective Backup and Disaster Recovery Managed Services in Orange County
Businesses that depend on managed services in Orange County understand that backup is not a luxury, but a necessity. As a business, it is imperative that you protect your internal documents, fast-changing transactional data, and customer-facing marketing statistics.
Understanding BDR
Backup and disaster recovery (BDR) serve different purposes. A backup is an extra copy of your data. You use it if the original is lost, damaged or deleted. Disaster recovery restores the systems and services your business needs to operate.
Backup and disaster recovery work together. If you lose data but your systems still work, you can restore a backup. If the systems are also unavailable, you first need a working environment. That environment includes the network, hardware and software as well as data.
A disaster recovery plan defines an alternate environment for this purpose. It also sets out how to restore data and resume IT services when the primary system fails.
Choosing a recovery location
Your recovery environment can be local or remote. For example, a spare local server may help after a hardware failure. However, damage to the whole data center may require a remote site. Choose a location that can withstand the risks identified in your recovery plan.
Cold, warm and hot recovery
Recovery speed depends on your requirements and the resources available. These three models describe how ready the alternate environment is:
- Cold – Backup data and system images are stored locally or remotely. Recovery servers must be prepared and started before service resumes.
- Warm – Recovery servers are configured in advance. The team still needs to restore current data and start the services.
- Hot – An alternate environment runs alongside the primary system. Data synchronization helps keep it ready for a switch.
Testing the recovery plan
You do not need to wait for a disaster to test recovery. A separate recovery environment can support tests of software upgrades and patches. Regular tests also reveal missing steps before an outage occurs.
A recovery plan needs a clear budget, scope and test schedule. Technijian can help businesses using managed services in Orange County assess these needs. Ask about backup coverage, recovery times and costs before choosing a service. Contact us today to learn more.
