According to a recent TechTarget survey, two-thirds (68%) of companies have a disaster recovery (DR) plan. While that is positive news, having a DR plan is only the first step to a comprehensive backup and DR strategy. What happens if a disaster actually occurs? Are you confident that your plan will be effective in keeping your business operations running?
A DR test examines each step in your business continuity/DR plan to ensure that you would be able to recover your data and restore business-critical applications after any interruption in services. Too often, organizations create their DR plan and consider the plan to be the complete solution.
If you have never tested your DR plan, how do you know it will work? TechTarget’s survey reveals that out of the two-thirds of companies with a plan in place, only 41% rate their confidence level as high. While 49% percent of the companies surveyed are moderately confident about their plans, we would guess they are still rolling the dice and praying nothing happens.
Disaster Recovery Plan Testing is Critical
The responses to TechTarget’s survey question, “How often do you test your DR plan?” underscore this point:
- 29%: No set schedule
- 26%: Once a year
- 19%: Twice a year
- 17%: Once a quarter
- 4%: Never
So, what do we make of the survey responses? Here’s the point—even if your resources only allow you to include mission-critical apps in your DR plans, the plan still needs to be tested at regular intervals throughout the year so that you know it will work for you when it’s needed. DR testing helps your IT managers identify changes in your IT environment so that your plan can be modified. Keep in mind that the typical data center undergoes changes in configuration on a regular basis.
Total Cloud-based DR Solutions through Veeam
Data backup and DR solutions should work together to protect your data and ensure business continuity in the event of an attack, natural disaster or other threat. EDSI Veeam Extreme, which offers comprehensive, cost-effective disaster recovery through Veeam Cloud Connect, eliminates the need for a second disaster recovery site by sending data to an off-site disaster recovery cloud in a secure manner. In doing so, it relieves much of the burden of testing your DR plan[CS1] .
DR, replication and monitoring tools offered through Veeam Extreme Cloud Connect solution automatically address these issues so that your plan will work for you if disaster does occur. You can count on Veeam Backup & Replication™ to automate and simplify your DR testing process. The result is that testing doesn’t have to be a significant drain on your IT team’s time.
You should have total confidence that your data will be available to you at all times. EDSI works with customers on customizing a Veeam Cloud Connect solution that meets your needs.
To learn more about Veeam backup and recovery solutions from EDSI, contact us today.