IT Support: Determining If You Need Backup or Disaster Recovery

IT Support: Determining If You Need Backup or Disaster Recovery

The Business Continuity Angle

IT support providers can provide both disaster recovery and data backup. For many companies, a synthesis of the two is desirable. Still, for some, going with one or the other may be best for a time. The issue is often deciding whether to just go with backup or to incorporate disaster recovery as well. If you've only got a backup solution, then you simply aren't going to be able to maintain continuity in the event of a disaster. You'll be able to reboot, but between the moment your business experiences an issue and the moment you get systems online again, you'll experience some downtime.

Downtime can be expensive. If you've got two hours' downtime weekly, that translates to 104 hours annually. If it only costs your small to medium-sized business $1,000 per hour of downtime, that's $102, 000 you're losing every single year. One thousand dollars per hour is a very conservative estimate of operational losses during downtime. It's integral to limit downtime as much as possible. The cloud provides exceptional redundancy, allowing for easily-maintained continuity. Part of downtime losses come from revenue reduction due to inaccessible systems during the emergency. Continuity can reduce this cost by ensuring your systems are always available to potential and existing clients; even as you and your tech team troubleshoot the issue and re-establish operations.

Mirroring Your Systems

IT support firms providing Disaster Recovery (DR) services often do so by "mirroring" your systems. Instead of files and operating systems requiring total reboot, when a "disaster" occurs--- be it a system crash or one of the natural variety--- it takes much less time to switch to the mirrored solution. This also curtails downtime in addition to making it possible for clients and employees to maintain system access. Lost time is substantially diminished.

Continuous Backup Is Preservative

A disaster recovery solution is usually facilitated via cloud computing. The cloud is used to continuously back up and store your information in the event of a disaster. While cloud solutions can be used like a tape system for facilitating backup, it just makes sense to go the mirrored approach. It's a small enough transition, and the potential savings are definitely worth considering. If you can cut your downtime in half, at $1,000 per hour, you'd save $52,000 in accordance with the previously explored scenario. If operation costs are higher for you, then you'll see even more savings.

Multiple Areas of Cost Reduction

While a smaller business that completes very few transactions online and does not have a ubiquity of employees working digitally may be able to stand a few hours downtime waiting for a backup, larger operations couldn't be able to get away with this. Meanwhile, backup and data recovery:

  • Reduce losses from client access restrictions
  • Reduce losses from employee inactivity
  • Expedite systems recovery

Comprehensive Security

Our IT support professionals at Vitalpoints can help you save time and money by curtailing employee inactivity and clientele losses while speeding up recovery time. Contact us to safeguard your business against the unexpected.