Backup and Disaster Recovery

One of the most important aspects of the IT services you’ll get from partnering with a MSP is Backup and Disaster Recovery, or BDR. Understanding the role BDR plays for your business is essential for minimizing downtime with your business. Downtime means loss of revenue, and unfortunately it’s inevitable that human error, viruses, or security breaches can cause this downtime to occur. Ransomware, in particular, is a major contributor to this issue for any IT infrastructure and can come in many different forms. It would be beneficial for you to have a team of experts on your side to ensure all threats are accounted for.

Our job as your MSP is to keep these occurrences as minimal as possible. Through BDR, we can do just that.

What is BDR and why is it so important?

A lot of times, businesses won’t recognize the importance of BDR as a service and may only acknowledge the value of the backup portion of BDR. In truth, the disaster recovery aspect is just as important, if not more so than the backup. The backup is essentially making a copy of data so that if anything happens to that data, you have a way to restore it. However, that doesn’t take into account how you will restore it and do it in a timely fashion. This is where the disaster recovery portion of BDR comes in.

Where backup is making a copy of your data, disaster recovery is the plan in place to quickly restore your system back to a point where you aren’t experiencing downtime, or as little downtime as possible. This plan may include having a redundant set of servers available so that if there is an outage, we can switch over until your primary servers are back up and running.

Time is money, and your MSP will aim to save you both with these services.

Recovery Time Objective vs. Recovery Point Objective

Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) are both directly related to you and your business. RTO refers to how much time you are realistically able to lose to downtime. RPO refers to how much data you are able to lose in a disaster to the system. Both of these will have to be determined by you in partnership with your MSP.

For RTO, the MSP will have that time you’ve given them regarding how quickly they need to have your system back up and running. This time will greatly vary depending on what type of business you run. A hospital for example, with all of the sensitive information needed to be operational, will have a much shorter timeframe to get the issues restored. A public library on the other hand, can probably stand to be down for a period of a day or two while waiting for their system to be restored. Whatever the time frame is, your MSP will be doing everything within their power to get your business back to operational so that you aren’t experiencing any more downtime than you can afford.

The information decided on for your RPO will determine how often backups are being created for your data and information. For businesses with sensitive information, it would be beneficial to continuously be taking snapshots, or backups, of your system. This is because you can’t afford to lose any data whatsoever. Most businesses however, will do these snapshots hourly. In either case, we want to avoid as much loss of data as possible.

Failover

Failover is the use of system redundancy to reduce the amount of downtime during a disaster recovery situation. Ideally, you’ll have this redundancy present from top to bottom. That way if one part of the system goes down, there is a backup that will take over until the original is functional again.

With larger businesses, you may have entire physical server redundancy. In this case, if the physical server ever goes down, it will failover to the second server. In any scenario, it’s vital to have contingency plans in place in case of a disaster recovery situation.

Who Needs a Backup and Disaster Recovery Plan?

The short answer to this is every business. As we stated previously, it’s essential to have a plan in place not only to backup all of your data and systems, but also to restore your systems. You could be a small business, and you will still see the benefit of redundancy and contingency plans. You could be running a large business with an abundance of moving parts and you will see the same value. In any case, you will want to have a plan in place to minimize any downtime resulting from outages or other disaster situations.

Valeo Networks Backup and Disaster Recovery Solutions

Valeo Networks has the answer for your backup and disaster recovery needs. Our team provides you with solutions that are designed for a prompt and comprehensive return to normalcy. Allowing you to resume your work as quickly as possible while keeping your sensitive information protected is just another way Valeo Networks can keep you focused on running your business.

Having a plan in place to not only backup your data but also to restore your systems in case of a disaster situation is an integral part of IT services. At Valeo, we are able to work with you to figure out the best solution for you. We can offer you backups as frequently as every 15 minutes, making sure that nothing ever goes unaccounted for. The worst thing you can do is wait until the last minute to address these concerns. You don’t want to play with fire when it comes to your secure information. Stay ahead of these concerns with Valeo Networks and allow us to provide you with a Backup and Disaster Recovery plan that ensures you the least amount of time and information lost.

Reach out today for a customized plan from Valeo Networks.

Looking for more information and resources?

Check out our blog full of articles to help keep you out in front for your business.