You Can’t Move Forward If You Don’t Back UP
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April 7, 2015
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So now you’ve finally implemented a comprehensive Information Asset Protection strategy. You have strong password policies and are rigorous about adherence. You’ve even deployed data encryption and possibly the more advanced data destruction capabilities. Your fortress is secure!
However, there are many things that could compromise your access to your information beyond theft or loss. Hardware and software failures are among them. We know about the occasionally dropped laptop or heaven forbid, that spilled beer or soft drink that seeps into the innards of your machine. Drive failures are also a common occurrence. Let’s also not forget that any encryption system, by its very nature is designed to scramble your data.
Which is why it is essential that you have a rock –solid backup and recovery plan to complement your information asset protection strategy. Regardless of the size of your organization – from a sole proprietor to large enterprises – you should always have provisions to be able get back to a set of your data that gets you operational as quickly and smoothly as possible. To that end, there are several things you should consider when developing a backup and recovery strategy. Among them are:
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How much data can you (or can’t you) afford to lose? Will losing an hour, day or week worth of data result in a financial or operational catastrophe for your work or business?
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How quickly do you need to be operational again? Will an extended amount of downtime while you are attempting to recover/restore your data severely impact your work or business?
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What is realistic for you to do given your resources of people, time and/or money? This includes looking at what technologies, people or processes are available for you to utilize.
Finally, it is important to insure that you test your backup and recovery strategy on a regular basis. Do not wait for failure to happen until you test your ability to recover data. Instead, make it a regular habit to bring data back from your backup sets at least once a quarter. So in addition to the ability to encrypt and/or eliminate your sensitive data, putting a good backup and recovery plan in place is essential to truly protecting your information assets and your business.
