Data Recovery: What To Do When Disaster Strikes

Posted by mter9248
April 4, 2008

Every data recovery plan starts with a corporate policy, which would outline what comprises a critical system.

Whatever constitutes a critical system, the need to identify it decides what action you need to take to prevent massive system failures and ensure an efficient data recovery process.

Once these policies have been specified and agreed upon, they must be turned into actions by the corporate IT department.

The first step of the process usually involves evaluation where the initial analysis of the extent of the data lost is determined. After the prognosis, the experts and technicians would then proceed in cloning or copying the media and queuing it into their systems. The actual data recovery process occurs when the technicians secure and extract the data from the copy of the damaged media.

For many companies, the first step of disaster recovery and data recovery is having a back up plan.

Back up processes are a cycle that usually includes supplementary back ups daily, full back ups weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually. Many more ways are available and whatever you choose, you must make sure that the maximum amount of data lost is equivalent to that of data created or stored in a single day. This way, the whole recovery process will be simplified and much easier to manage.

Aside from back ups, there is also a need to ensure protraction of equipment and the ability to read and run media over time. The safest way to do this is to keep continuous updates on the type of media used for storing back ups. If the backup media cannot be read because the only hardware capable of doing so is too outmoded or is no longer in production, then your disaster recovery are completely laid to waste.

Another reason why there is a need for continuance in back up media is the assurance that total recovery is possible with a complete back up system and disaster recovery policy. Time is also another factor. Disaster recovery and data recovery strategies may take longer if incremental back ups are done sporadically.

If you are to restore systems quickly, you will need offsite hardware that is as close in specifications to your existing equipment as possible. These key back up servers will minimize the time it takes to do a complete recovery process. Again, continuous updates in these servers are fundamental to the speed and efficiency of the data recovery process.

Having a disaster recovery plan is an essential part of your business. It is precisely for this reason that you not only need to have a data recovery strategy but also that these plans are regularly tested to make sure that theyre good enough. When you prove that your data recovery and disaster recovery strategies really do work, then that is the time for you to say that you have a valid data recovery plan.

T J Madigan has been established in online business since 1998 and is director of a number of successful online projects one of which is http://articles.net.au your best source for FREE articles and information.

Data Recovery

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