24/07/24

As most economies continue to grow after a constant economic crisis, is it time to slow down the implementation of a disaster recovery plan? This article will show you that it’s not.

We know that boosting and improving a successful disaster recovery (DR) strategy is always challenging. Clearly, the COVID-19 pandemic for example added unthinkable challenges even for data center managers, who are accustomed to handling emergencies.

Indeed, this crisis has demonstrated that disaster recovery is essential for organizations of all types and sizes and must be carried out continuously.

But thinking more specifically about IT, how did the needs of enterprise Data Centers evolve in this area during the crisis?

This article presents a verification checklist with six expert recommendations from ODATA for preparing your disaster recovery plan and protecting your Data Center (and consequently your entire organization) from various types of disasters.

How did the needs of enterprise Data Centers evolve during crisis?

Undoubtedly, the pandemic was an immediate stress test, and like everyone else, companies had to adapt, accelerating their investments in digital evolution.

Understandably, many organizations were caught off guard, especially in the operation of data centers, trying to cope with the increased demand for connectivity as much as possible directly in applications and in the local structure itself.

However, we know that direct action on information architecture aimed at improving operational efficiency, including considering migrating to a carrier-neutral structure, such as Colocation buildings, even amid the crisis, would undoubtedly be more effective in enhancing the user experience (UX).

But what to expect?

Interestingly, corporate architecture promises to change in response to a more distributed long-term workforce in the coming years. Many companies partially chose to return to the offices, maintaining the hybrid model as a preferential option.

This scenario leads many to move away from downtown since commuting to work will no longer be an obligation. Therefore, the company will increasingly have to resemble the average consumer, who buys, relates to, and uses content virtually.

Data Center service providers quickly identified these changes. They responded with more options, flexibility, and automation, allowing their clients to manage all their deployments remotely through a single control panel.

Today, Data Centers are processing more workloads, data, videos, and machine learning and facilitating companies’ global evolution, even in smaller or regional organizations. Therefore, they are becoming part of a network providing capacity, connectivity, power, and proximity, allowing companies to take advantage of the location, scale, and economy best suited to them.

We see these trends accelerating in the coming months. And as this movement intensifies, it is undeniable that the Data Center’s disaster recovery plan must not only be maintained but also continuously improved.

What is disaster recovery?

Threats to the operation of a Data Center come in various forms and formats. They can range from minor incidents, such as short-term power supply interruptions or unintentional data modification, to severe disasters, such as cyberattacks, equipment destruction, or fires.

A company needs an effective disaster recovery plan to minimize data loss and restore normal business operations as quickly as possible. The idea is to think ahead and prepare the necessary resources before a real disaster occurs.

However, before discussing the specifics of a good crisis mitigation and post-crisis restoration plan, let’s consider disaster recovery from the perspective of a data processing center. In general terms, disaster recovery is organizational planning to resume business operations after an unexpected event that can damage or destroy data, software, and hardware systems.

Most professional organizations invest in some way in data protection services as an integral part of the Data Center’s disaster recovery plan, usually using a backup, redundancy, and restoration service to protect critical business data.

Therefore, large professional organizations often spend a significant portion of their budget on Data Center disaster recovery plans to avoid potentially crippling revenue losses that may result from the inability to carry out operations after a particular critical incident.

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What exactly does a disaster recovery plan consist of?

Although it is impossible to eliminate risks completely, an effective disaster recovery plan can help you control a disaster and reduce revenue loss. Therefore, a disaster recovery policy aims to define the company’s assets and an algorithm of activities necessary to protect them.

The first step is determining which processes and data are essential for your business. The term “assets” is quite broad and can refer to hardware and equipment, applications and databases, or even employees.

More precisely, it would help if you defined the scope of your Data Center disaster recovery policy (e.g., information technology systems, software, databases, network resources, and other assets your company needs to maintain operations).

Therefore, the development of a Data Center disaster recovery strategy may include:

• A comprehensive assessment of business impact to determine the costs associated with the loss of critical systems;
• A set of recovery goals to determine the maximum downtime window before restarting after an operational disruption due to a disaster;
• Definition of measures to minimize the amount of data permanently lost due to the time discrepancy between a specific data backup point and the data in the event of a disaster;
• A disaster recovery plan that mitigates Data Center downtime and operation downtime, providing maximum fault tolerance for all network-related business functions.

With the increasing accessibility of external data backup, more and more small and medium-sized enterprises are taking advantage of Data Center disaster recovery services that were previously only available to large companies.

To help you with this task, ODATA experts have prepared a verification checklist with the main measures to protect your Data Center from various types of disasters. See below:

Checklist: Where do you start your disaster recovery plan?

When preparing a disaster recovery plan, remember that it must work in conjunction with a business continuity strategy. The ultimate goal of both documents is to limit the scope of an outage event, minimize downtime, and find alternative means of operation, such as Data Center redundancy, in advance.

Next, we have prepared a checklist of the six main actions to take to prepare an initial-phase disaster recovery plan:

#1. Make an inventory

Firstly, it is essential to map what specific hardware, software, and data are critical to your business’s operation. Start with server rooms and Data Centers and proceed to terminals such as workstations and peripheral devices. After that, go to applications and work software. Pay special attention to server software, hypervisors, and the necessary configuration to restart them in case of an incident.

#2. Create a complete backup

After finishing the inventory, make a complete backup of your data. If you still don’t have one, develop a suitable backup rotation scheme.

#3. Hire a remote service for Data Center redundancy

To mitigate the shutdown of the entire business if an incident forces your server to shut down, it is essential to have a “mirror structure” that acts as a backup and can start operating immediately. To do it, you can hire a Colocation service and establish redundancy for your primary Data Center.

#4. Prioritize restoration

Linking data to specific machines where they are stored is essential. This allows you to identify the most critical infrastructure elements and rank them by importance.

#5. Calculate downtime costs

Downtime results in productivity losses, revenue losses, and potential damage to your company’s reputation. Calculating the cost of a possible failure correctly can help you decide how much to invest in preventive measures.

#6. Promote regular updates

Your disaster recovery policy should remain a living document. Update it whenever there are changes in personnel or your company’s infrastructure. Also, conduct periodic tests to see if your approach is practical in different circumstances.

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Conclusion

As we have seen, the pandemic has rapidly accelerated the corporate implementation of digital transformation initiatives, such as adopting the cloud and other digital technologies. This is because consumers were forced to rely exclusively on online platforms and channels for communication, selling, and conducting business.

In this scenario, Data Center service providers like ODATA play a key role in supporting their clients in digital adoption and meeting the increased demand for connectivity. And we don’t see that changing anytime soon.

COVID-19 has tested the Data Center sector as a whole, and today, we demonstrate how capable we are of keeping the digital economy connected, powered, and thriving.

“We expect strong continuous growth as companies witness the advantages, benefits, and peace of mind of partnering with a specialized Data Center solutions provider.”

Ricardo Alário, ODATA CEO

Therefore, developing and implementing an effective disaster recovery plan requires comprehensive planning and a complex approach.

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