Data Recovery Digest

Downtime on data can occur for a whole variety of reasons, ranging from human error to malicious intent to natural disaster. Businesses should be aware of these constant risks and have a recovery plan in place to ensure that they’ll be ready and prepared if the worst was to happen to their data.

Of course, this usually involves dedicating a portion of the budget to disaster recovery. In a time when data needs are mounting and budgets are getting tighter, some firms are simply choosing – unwisely – to take the risk and hope that nothing happens to their data. Data is likely to go missing or get corrupted or entirely wiped out at some point, so it pays to be prepared.

It is currently estimated that around more than 60 percent of small American businesses do not have a proper disaster recovery plan and also do not back their data up off site. Worryingly, some statistics claim that 43 percent of businesses do not reopen after catastrophic data loss.

Handily, Unitrends have announced that they are now offering small to medium sized businesses a free disaster recovery tool that can be used online. Unitrends are a company that offer a variety of data protection and disaster recovery solutions targeted at enterprise users.

Speaking to eWEEK, Unitrends’ chief strategy and technology officer Mark Campbell that “a lot of companies hear disaster recovery and immediately think of natural disasters such as floods or fires, which can lead to a 'that will never happen to me' mentality,” a thought process which often extends to individual users too. “But actually, there are far more common causes of downtime and data loss that SMBs should be concerned about, including hardware failure, software corruption, human error and malware attacks,” he continued.

The service, called BC/DR link, helps you build and customise your own disaster recovery plan. It guides you through, step-by-step, the best practiced process and allows you to attach checklists, instructions, floor plans, and more throughout. You can also signpost where certain employees will be involved and you can then link everyone together with mobile checklists, ensuring key disaster recovery personnel have access at all times.

The service also comes with 1GB of storage in the Unitrends cloud, which can be used to store the aforementioned documents like evacuation plans and emergency contacts.

“Limited budget and resources are the two most common reasons why SMBs fail to implement a disaster recovery strategy despite understanding its importance,” said Campbell. “Our focus at Unitrends is to provide all customers with 100 percent disaster recovery assurance, and BC/DR Link is the latest demonstration of this commitment.”

“Any sort of small business that uses technology is at risk of data loss—that’s almost everyone. Thinking that downtime or data loss won’t happen to you is a grave mistake,” Campbell continued. “Companies need to prepare for the worst with a best practices plan that will facilitate reliable and rapid recovery. With a free tool, there’s no longer an excuse to let disaster recovery planning fall to the wayside.”

Further information on the tool, plus the ability to sign up and use it immediately, can be found on Unitrends’ {{https://bcdrlink.com/|BC/DR website}}.