The pandemic required many organizations to strategize and adapt to a rapidly changing situation. As a result, we saw a large number of companies implement a remote work model. This sudden and massive shift felt across a variety of industries has led many business leaders to rethink the importance of business continuity and disaster recovery.
COVID-19 and the Importance of Disaster Recovery as a Service
If we’ve learned anything from the pandemic, it’s that the future is unpredictable and business disruptions can come out of nowhere. It has also been a reminder that those disruptions can come in a variety of forms, many of which you can’t anticipate and aren’t minor inconveniences either. In a worst-case scenario, an emergency can impact revenue, delete valuable data, or stop your operations.
If you were one of the organizations that moved to remote work, then it’s possible that you unintentionally introduced new vulnerabilities into your network. Like a natural disaster, a cyberattack has the potential to wreak havoc on your operations. However, if you have a cloud disaster recovery plan, then you have what you need to protect your business from disruptions.
What Is Disaster Recovery as a Service?
When IT professionals talk about disaster recovery, they’re referring to a set of policies and procedures created to help businesses prepare for the unknown. This preventive measure is a crucial part of a business continuity plan. With disaster recovery, you can implement steps to prepare your organization for incidents and develop corrective measures to get your business back on its feet.
While you can try to implement your own disaster recovery plan, it’s recommended that you get the help of an expert, like Americom Imaging Systems. An expert IT provider has the knowledge and experience to help you craft a thorough plan that leaves nothing out. When you partner with a professional provider for this solution, it’s known as disaster recovery as a service.
What Are the Benefits of Disaster Recovery as a Service?
There are many reasons you should work with a vendor that offers disaster recovery as a service. Some of the more notable reasons include:
- Lower Costs: Creating a disaster recovery program is expensive, primarily because of recurring costs for IT maintenance and support. There’s also hidden costs like purchasing and maintaining software and software licenses. Disaster recovery as a service allows you to avoid these costs.
- Faster Data Recovery: Time plays a crucial role in the recovery process. Internal solutions often lead to longer wait times. A provider that offers cloud disaster recovery can shorten your recovery time.
- Less Complexity: With a provider, there’s no need for you to build out additional infrastructure or hire administration to manage your servers. Your vendor has the infrastructure you need and maintains it for you.
- Security: With disaster recovery as a service, you get the latest in cybersecurity solutions to protect the servers where your data is stored.
- Offsite Storage: In the event of an emergency, like a natural disaster or hardware theft, storing your data in an offsite location means you still have access to your information.
- Comprehensive Protection: Businesses that have limited funds usually only protect their most critical servers. If you’re not backing up everything, you’re putting some of your files at risk. Disaster recovery as a service allows you to cover all of your data.
What Are the Risks of Not Having Disaster Recovery?
It can’t be overstated how bad business data loss is. That’s why it’s recommended that you do everything you can to defend your information. To make it easier to fully understand the importance of disaster recovery, let’s focus on what could happen if a data loss event were to occur:
- Lost Revenue: Things like product information, research, reports, and more all have to be gathered or created. It would take a fair amount of time to recover or replace whatever was lost. As you try to fix the situation, you lose even more valuable time that could’ve been spent maintaining your revenue stream or finding new business opportunities.
- Damaged Reputation: Your reputation drives the success of your brand. It takes years to build customer trust and confidence in whatever products or services you offer. And the better your reputation is, the more customers you’re going to attract. If your clients discover that your business lost its data, this could irrevocably ruin the trust they had in your organization. If your clients and partners don’t think they can trust you with their information, they may choose to take their business elsewhere.
- Regulatory Issues: Some industries, like the healthcare sector, require businesses to meet certain standards when handling certain information. If you lose sensitive data, it could put you in violation of established laws, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Depending on what regulations have been violated, you could be forced to pay hefty penalties that can be either disciplinary or monetary.
- Direct Costs: The financial danger of losing data isn’t limited to fines and lost revenue. There’s also the cost of recovering the information in the aftermath of data loss. Even if you’re able to recover everything, you still have to pay for the reactive service to restore your files.
Create a Disaster Recovery Plan With Americom
For the best in managed print and IT services, businesses in the St. Louis area choose Americom Imaging Systems. If you need disaster recovery as a service, we can help. Our consultants work with you to develop a plan that’s customized to your business needs, ensuring the plan works as expected. With us by your side, you can rest easy.
Contact us today to learn more.
