Disaster Recovery Services

Disaster recovery (DR) is a comprehensive strategy for responding to and recovering from incidents that disrupt normal business operations, such as natural disasters, cyber attacks, or power outages.

It encompasses identifying critical systems, data, and procedures, and implementing steps to recover these vital components quickly and efficiently. Effective DR aims to minimise data loss and ensure business continuity.

A DRP is essential because it provides a structured approach for businesses to respond to and recover from disasters. Without a DRP, businesses risk significant data loss, extended downtime, and potential financial and reputational damage.

A well-designed DRP helps to quickly recover critical systems, protect critical data elsewhere, and maintain customer trust and business operations during and after a disaster.

IT disaster recovery focuses on the restoration of IT infrastructure and access to data, whereas business continuity is a broader strategy that ensures the continuation of the entire business operation during a disruption.

While IT disaster recovery is a component of business continuity, the latter may also include plans for managing human resources, physical locations, business processes, and communication.

An IT disaster recovery plan should include:

• An inventory of hardware, software services, and data
• Identification of critical applications and data
• A clear definition of Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) and Recovery Time Objectives (RTO)
• Detailed disaster recovery procedures and roles
• Information on backup systems and data management
• Procedures for restoring data and critical systems.
• Plans for testing and optimising disaster recovery procedures regularly

Cloud Disaster Recovery is a DR approach that uses cloud services to back up data and applications. The benefits include:

• Scalability: Adjust resources based on your needs without the physical limitations of your own infrastructure.
• Cost-effectiveness: Pay for only what you use and avoid capital expenditure on physical servers and data centres.
• Accessibility: Restore data and applications from anywhere, enhancing flexibility during a disaster.
• Automation: Many cloud service providers offer automated backup and recovery processes, reducing the need for manual intervention.

DRaaS is a cloud-based service model where a third-party provider manages and offers disaster recovery solutions. The benefits include:

• Reduced complexity: DRaaS providers handle the intricacies of disaster recovery, freeing up your resources.
• Quick deployment: Implement disaster recovery services rapidly without the need for physical infrastructure.
• Expertise: Gain access to experienced experts and best practices.
• Regular testing and updates: DRaaS providers ensure your DR plans are current and effective.

We use a combination of online data backup, cloud backup, and regular testing to ensure that data can be restored efficiently. Our backup process is designed to protect against data breaches, equipment failures, and other forms of data loss with encryption and secure storage.

We also ensure that the backup process aligns with your RPO and RTO to minimise loss and downtime.

RPO and RTO are key metrics in disaster recovery planning. The Recovery Point Objective (RPO) refers to the maximum acceptable amount of data loss measured in time. It dictates how often data backups should occur.

For example, an RPO of 4 hours means you can tolerate losing up to 4 hours’ worth of data. Recovery Time Objective (RTO), on the other hand, is the target time you set for the recovery of your IT and business activities after a disaster has struck, how quickly you need to recover. If your RTO is 2 hours, then your systems and processes should be up and running within 2 hours of the disaster.

Disaster recovery plans should be evaluated at least once a year, but ideally, they would be tested bi-annually or quarterly. The frequency can also be influenced by changes in the business environment, IT infrastructure, or after any significant system updates.

Regular testing ensures that disaster recovery processes and procedures are effective, and that staff are familiar with their roles in the event of a disaster.

Fully managed disaster recovery and managed services imply that all aspects of disaster recovery—from planning, implementation, monitoring, to the actual recovery process—are managed by the service provider.

This often includes automated backups, regular testing, instant activation of virtual servers in case of a disaster, and continuous monitoring for threats such as cyber attacks or hardware failure.

Yes, we can restore data from both physical servers and virtual machines. Our solutions are designed to work with your existing infrastructure, whether it’s on-premises, in the cloud, or a hybrid.

We provide online data backup and restoration capabilities for a variety of systems, ensuring your entire computing environment is recoverable.

If a disaster strikes and your primary site is compromised, our disaster recovery services will activate your DR plan.

This typically involves switching over to a secondary data centre or cloud service provider where your data and applications are replicated. The goal is to quickly recover critical systems and data, minimising downtime and ensuring business continuity.