There’s a lot to consider when you’re preparing to withstand a disaster. To ensure that your business continues running smoothly in case of an interruption, you need a business continuity plan. It’s important to know how your operations will continue (including employees, customers, facilities, infrastructure and data backup solutions) long before it’s time to put a plan into action.
Warren Averett Technology Group can assess your business continuity plan for possible improvements or help you put a business continuity plan in place. Our business continuity experts can assist with solutions and notifications so you can continue to operate when a disaster strikes. We have the expertise to help you plan for business continuity and can help your company conduct tabletop exercises to ensure your needs are met.
In the unfortunate event of a disaster, you’ll need to continue doing business—and the time to sort out your plan for that is before misfortune strikes. Some companies only plan for maintaining their technological needs, but a true business continuity plan should account for where business can temporarily be conducted and include a plan for supporting technological infrastructure. In addition, employees will need to access data that’s essential to keeping the business operational.
Warren Averett Technology Group can assist with developing your business continuity plan by assessing the facilities, equipment and processes that allow your business to continue working. This includes determining application criticality to evaluating whether a hot, partial or cold site is needed (or a mixture of these sites)—these safe off-site locations offer varying degrees of IT environment replication.
Data and system backup involves copying data from the main storage site(s) to a secondary location to protect against disasters, accidents or cyberattacks. Companies depend on their data and systems to keep their business functioning, and losing either will disrupt operations. Setting up automated systems to back up data and ensure systems remain functional ensures that the business can continue with as minimal downtime as possible.
Warren Averett Technology Group can assess your data and system backup solutions by examining the type of data, its level of criticality to the company and the redundancy required to make sure that the proper things are able to be restored in a timeframe that meets with the company’s needs. We can also help with evaluating whether applications and configurations need to be part of the backup to ensure the proper level of recovery, as well as the proper use of local and cloud data redundancy.
System redundancy creates a fail-safe against a system breakdown. It replicates the system’s vital parts to ensure the system can keep functioning while the main system is being repaired. When something in the system fails, redundancy minimizes the interruption and provides reliability so that your operations can continue as normal.
Warren Averett Technology Group can help to evaluate your business’ system redundancy by measuring the time it takes to rebuild systems and comparing the option of having a site ready to go, partially in place or completely rebuilt. The assessment requires determining how long the company can afford to be down in a disaster. Cloud options can also assist in this area.
Our team will assess critical applications, functions, technology infrastructure and data access. Then, we will determine what is most needed to maintain business continuity until everything can be returned to operational order.
Next, we will evaluate the cost of preparedness with how much the business would lose if continuity was disrupted during a disaster. Understanding these costs will help us to determine where to allocate funds for protecting business continuity.
Our professionals will provide business continuity plan options based on how long your business can afford for your operations to be down in the event of a disaster.
Finally, our team will provide guidance for selecting a business continuity plan that is right for your needs. There is no one-size-fits-all option, so the option should be complementary to your specific needs.
Business continuity is more than just backups. It involves considering how your business would operate, where you would operate, how you would communicate and which items are most critical if your typical resources are unavailable. Having this type of information written down and understood by everyone involved takes the uncertainty of next steps out of the equation when disaster strikes. With a proper business continuity plan, everyone knows the arrangements and timeframes for recovery.
Regardless of whether it is one primary person or several, depending upon the disaster they may not be available. Think of a business continuity plan like the diagram on the back of the hotel room door that shows the route to the closest exit in case of an emergency. It’s written and people can see what to do, versus having to contact or find the front desk personnel to ask how to exit the building. Your business continuing to operate is crucial and should have a plan for keeping it going.
You don’t want to find out at the time of a disaster that your recovery plans were not designed as well as they could have been. From securing backup generators and hot spot locations to defining role responsibilities and locating temporary office space, we can help you weigh your options to develop a solid response plan.