Common Customer Mistakes in Data Recovery

By Matt Brennan

When a disaster jeopardizes the security of your company’s information, it takes a well-written and routinely tested data recovery plan to keep your organization running. It’s important to keep backing up your data, but those backups need to be used to quickly restore your operating environment. Downtime will have a significant cost to your organization. The more that you can do to minimize downtime, the better.

It helps to make sure that your data recovery plan is tested, so that everyone knows their role in the event of a data loss. Below are some of the common mistakes we see as organizations attempt to restore their data.

Keeping It an IT Matter

The employees who use the missing data the most are the ones who will be most impacted by a data loss. They’re also helpful allies as you work to recover lost information. They can give you input on the most crucial data within your organization, and in testing your recovery plan. They can help you rank the most crucial information in day-to-day usage.

Creating a Data Recovery Plan and Not Testing It

Data loss creates organizational stress. When you develop a strategy for dealing with fires or tornados, you would test that too, to make sure that employees knew what to do. The same is true for a data recovery plan. Make sure that those who rely on the data understand what to do when it’s not readily accessible. Make sure that everyone across the organization understands their role in the recovery process.

Not Taking Advantage of Available Technology

Manual on site backups serve their purpose but may not be enough to get you through a data loss. They also rely on employees to set aside the time to back their information up, instead of an automated process. Cloud technology with automated backups offer a safe way for organizations to store data off site. There are flexibility and cost measures to this approach that make it an advantageous data backup method.

A Failure to Revisit Your Plan

Your organization is a fluid enterprise. The employees who handle your data change. The technology around you changes as well. For these reasons, it helps to review your data recovery plan on a regular basis to make sure it accurately reflects your organizational interests.

Not Enough Contingency Planning

What happens if your on-site backups were impacted by the same disaster that impacted your top level of data? It’s crucial to remember that Plan B can be impacted in the same way that Plan A was. As you develop a data recovery plan, make sure that you think through multiple scenarios. Now, it’s true that you can’t plan for everything, but a thorough approach to planning will help keep you more secure in the long run.

Your Organization Can Avoid These Mistakes

Like anything else, it helps to know where the data recovery pitfalls are. Understanding what not to do is important. After you have a data recovery plan in place, test it and include the appropriate employees for the process. By being thorough now, you’re in a better position to withstand whatever the future may hold.