It’s essential to have the right IT backup and disaster recovery (DR) systems in place if you want to safeguard your company’s digital assets.

From cyberattacks and malware to hardware failures and natural catastrophes, having the right plan in place is essential. It can test your system, prevent loss and recover vital data in the event of a disaster.

The right strategy and solution

As an IT manager, you want an IT backup and stress test that can determine how well your system can withstand critical situations while at the same time operating at optimal capacity.

A good backup and DR strategy should include off-site/cloud storage of important information, regular data saving and backup, fireproofing, and protection against malware and viruses. It should also perform regular audits of your stress-testing recovery plan to ensure your data, servers, intranets and LANs are protected in an emergency.

A stress-testing recovery plan can identify weaknesses in your system and alert you to where improvements in your network’s defenses are required. This may then require data-loss-prevention and spam-filtering devices, mobile device management hardware, and firewalls for websites and applications.

Business processes and security applications

Before deciding on the best backup solution, consider your business processes and how a loss of computing capability could affect them.

It’s also vitally important to keep your antivirus software current on all workstations and servers within your internal LAN, and to ensure they are able to isolate an affected machine before the contagion spreads.

Keep all production servers/network devices up to date with the latest patches, and scan for vulnerabilities on a consistent basis. The best DR plans include regular backups of all production-critical devices, secure and accessible recovery of those backups and a step-by-step recovery procedure that relevant personnel can understand clearly and initiate in an emergency.

The good news for CIOs, CTOs and others responsible for ensuring IT infrastructure is up to date and resilient is that backup and DR systems have been converging for some years now.

Today’s data backup software and hardware are more tightly integrated – and there are converged hardware products that can back up and replicate applications, eliminating the need for separate software. As a result, backup and DR are moving closer to becoming one all-inclusive process.

Talk to an UI IT Expert about your back up solutions to help protect your business.