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Disaster recovery

: Definition, process, and benefits

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Effective data management and disaster preparedness are crucial for maintaining continuous operations in today’s business environment. This is why disaster recovery (DR) is so important. But what exactly is disaster recovery, and how can it protect businesses from data loss and operational interruptions caused by various disasters? This article explains the concept, process, and benefits of disaster recovery, specifically in the context of B2B applications.

Disaster recovery (DR) is an essential component of a company's IT strategy, aimed at preventing or minimizing data loss and operational disruptions resulting from misfortunate events. These events can range from hardware and software failures to cyber-attacks and natural disasters. The purpose of the DR is to ensure that a company can resume its critical business functions as quickly as possible.

The process of disaster recovery planning

A disaster recovery plan (DRP) is a documented process or set of procedures designed to recover IT systems, applications, and data after a catastrophe. The creation of a DRP begins with a detailed business impact analysis. This involves analyzing the potential impacts of various disaster scenarios on the company to identify the most critical business processes and determine the tolerable downtime for each function.

Disaster recovery planning: risk analysis

Another important step is risk analysis, which assesses the likelihood and potential consequences of perils that the company faces. This includes evaluating natural disasters, cyber-attacks, insider threats, sabotage, and human errors. Companies must consider the potential financial losses, damage to reputation, and productivity impacts from these risks.

Continuous testing and review

A disaster recovery plan is only as effective as its regular testing and review. All employees with relevant responsibilities should participate in these tests to ensure that procedures run smoothly in case of emergency. Regular reviews and updates of the plan are necessary to accommodate changes in IT infrastructure and business requirements.

Disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS)

Disaster recovery as a Service (DRaaS) is a cloud-based service that allows businesses to outsource their DR strategies. DRaaS providers offer failover environments that can be activated in the event of a disaster to ensure business continuity. These solutions enable significant cost savings, as no redundant dedicated hardware resources are required in the company's own data center.

Service-level agreements (SLAs) of DRaaS providers define the maximum downtimes (RTOs) and the expectations for recovery points (RPOs). Companies can enter into contracts that cover both the maintenance of failover functions and the resources consumed in an emergency.

NetApp BlueXP disaster recovery

NetApp offers comprehensive DR services with BlueXP disaster recovery. This solution continuously replicates applications and data to an alternative infrastructure, allowing production operations to be quickly shifted to failover systems in case of a disaster at a primary site. Causes of such disasters could include natural events, hardware failures, or sabotage. Data loss is minimized through real-time replication, and critical applications are available at a failover data center within minutes after an automatic failover procedure. NetApp BlueXP disaster recovery ensures optimal resilience and adherence to stringent recovery time objectives (RTOs). NetApp BlueXP disaster recovery is available for VMware infrastructures using on-premises or Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP as recovery targets.

NetApp disaster recovery for business security

Disaster recovery is an indispensable part of any company's IT strategy, especially in the B2B sector. By implementing a comprehensive DRP, utilizing modern technologies and cloud-based solutions, and conducting regular tests and reviews, companies can ensure that they are prepared for all possible disaster scenarios. This not only protects their business functions, but also strengthens the trust of their business partners and customers.

Cyber resilience resources

Want to keep learning? Check out our resource hub. Watch videos, read blogs, and see documentation that will allow you to dive deeper into all things cyber resilience.

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