For 25 years, Digicorp has been designing, implementing, and supporting IT backup and recovery solutions. Our vast experience in this area has taught us much. Although data loss cannot be fully mitigated, there are a few recommendations that can help prevent the painful loss of data. They are:
- Implement a quality backup and recovery system
- Monitor your backup and recovery systems
- Conduct data recovery tests
Whether your applications are on-premise or in the cloud, these recommended steps are still necessary.
The remainder of this document discusses the details of items two and three.
What Causes Data Loss?
Data loss may be caused by several factors, including natural disasters, hardware/software failure, theft, ransomware/malware, or human error. Although we have seen all of the above, the greatest risk in today’s environment is ransomware/malware. Simply put, this nefarious risk can strike from all corners of our world. As an industry, we have recognized for years that data loss was a substantial and costly threat. But the criminal element’s threat of holding our data hostage has substantially increased the probability and cost of data loss.
In two separate studies of ransomware attacks in 2019, the following was revealed:
- Ransomware impacted 966 government, educational, and healthcare organizations.
- Ransomware is estimated to have affected one out of every five small companies.
These observations lead us to the conclusion that we must be diligent in building highly recoverable systems.
Monitoring Your Backup and Recovery Systems
- Daily review
- Did backup jobs pass or fail?
- Weekly review
- System health review – system errors, storage capacity, job completion times, etc.
- Quarterly review
- Back-up system update reviews and update implementations.
For many customers, managing these processes is more than they want to handle. In recognition of this fact, Digicorp has created several monitoring options for different-sized organizations ranging from smaller organizations with less than ten servers to mid-size organizations that require more sophisticated solutions at affordable prices.
Conduct Data Recovery Tests – Trust but Verify
Even when an organization monitors its systems, it is possible to have a situation where an element of the data structure does not get included in the backup jobs or in the case where encrypted files may not be easily recovered. There are also organizations such as financial institutions that must document that they can recover critical systems and data. As the Russian proverb made famous by President Reagan states, “Trust but Verify.”
Digicorp’s System Recovery Testing Model
Start with why?
Systems fail. The failure may be due to human error during setup, changes subsequent to initial set-up, an application or database problem, or failure of the backup system itself. Regardless, if the system and data are a high priority for your organization, a validation recovery is necessary.
Our Process
- Define critical data and systems that should be tested.
- This may be as simple as a file recovery or as complex as a full system and data recovery.
- Define acceptable Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) and Recovery Time Objectives (RTO).
- Run recovery test.
- Validate that the test recovered all necessary systems and data according to the RPO.
- Document and certify the test outcomes.
How much will this cost?
Each project stands on its own. But in the case of a system and data recovery test of a small business, single critical application it is possible to complete the work for less than $2,000. Our engineers will help you determine everything from time frame to potential licensing needs and provide you a custom quote. For larger system and data recovery testing, we design custom quotations.
Please contact Digicorp sales for a custom quotation.
