Data Disaster Recovery
Disaster recovery (DR) is an organization’s ability to respond to and recover from an event that negatively affects business operations. The goal of DR methods is to enable the organization to regain use of critical systems and IT infrastructure as soon as possible after a disaster occurs. To prepare for this, organizations often perform an in-depth analysis of their systems and create a formal document to follow in times of crisis. This document is known as a disaster recovery plan.
What is a disaster?
The practice of DR revolves around events that are serious in nature. These events are often thought of in terms of natural disasters, but they can also be caused by systems or technical failure or by humans carrying out an intentional attack. They are significant enough to disrupt or completely stop critical business operations for a period of time. Types of disaster include:
- Cyber attacks such as malware, DDoS and ransomware attacks
- Sabotage
- Power outages
- Equipment failure
- Epidemics or pandemics, such as COVID-19
- Terrorist attacks or threats
- Industrial accidents
- Hurricanes
- Tornadoes
- Earthquakes
- Floods
- Fires
Why is disaster recovery important?
Disasters can inflict many types of damage with varying levels of severity, depending on the scenario. A brief network outage could result in frustrated customers and some loss of business to an e-commerce system. A hurricane or tornado could destroy an entire manufacturing facility, data center or office.
