Best Disaster Recovery (DR) Solutions

Recovery point objective, or RPO, refers to how frequently an organization runs backups. It is indicative of how much data (created or updated) will be lost or needed to be re-entered after a disaster or outage occurs. In contrast, recovery time objective, or RTO, dictates the amount of time you have to recover after a disruption. This allotted amount of time is determined by an organization based on what they believe is an acceptable tolerance or threshold of time that is acceptable to pass during a disruption, during which data can be lost. If files are not recovered within the allotted time an organization has established as part of its crisis management, files may not be able to be recovered, and damages may be irreversible. Even though not all data is equally considered critical to business operations, organizations should still aim to have short RPOs and RTOs. The shorter the RTO, the shorter the downtime, and the shorter the RPO, the less you are at risk for losing a lot of data.

When a crisis hits, it is imperative to have a disaster recovery strategy in place. Take the time to research the different options and choose the solution that best meets your business needs. Below are some of the top key features to look for:

• Data capturing: To protect against data loss, you want to make sure the software you select can handle different formats of data. The product should be able to handle backing up data from all different time frames and angles in order to supply multiple bootable recovery options.
• Efficiency of resources: Ensuring efficiency in storage and backups is important for keeping your data safe. However, if the process takes too long to back up your data, you may be at risk for not being completely protected. Ensuring that the software you choose also includes data compression tools will make efficiency in storage and backups seamless without slowing down your servers.
• Protection: Your data will remain protected during backups and storage if your software product has a strong encryption. Having this feature will prevent breaches as data travels through other public networks.
• Business applications: This disk imaging feature is a must-have because it guarantees backups run full-time, even when applications are running.
• Easy administration policies: The product should contain clear and easy-to-understand instructions on how to duplicate data into secondary or tertiary copies, and should also contain notification features to let you know immediately if and when a backup fails.
• Scalability, control and monitoring: Purchase a product that can scale with you as your organization grows. Your software should also enable you to control backup and data recovery, as well as distribution of tasks from a single point of control.
• Local off-line storage: Among your backup options, you should have the ability to have an off-line storage option available to you which will ultimately make recovery simple and fast.
• Multiple platform support: It is important to confirm that several platforms for backup and restoration are included to make installation and recovery easy when a whole system is lost or if you need to migrate to an alternate platform.
• Support of multiple data types: Your product should support different types of data (server images, Hyper-V, VMware, NetApp, etc.) so that you can replicate data quickly, recover data more easily, and even migrate to a new platform seamlessly.
• Hardware: Bare-metal recovery will help you restore data, system files, or any operating system. Essentially, this feature enables you to replace old systems with little to no effort.

• Lower RTOs and RPOs: You can drastically reduce backup and restore times, saving you time and money. WIth these shorter restore times, you can significantly lower RTOs and RPOs, which would otherwise be impossible to do without a disaster recovery solution.
• Limit your losses: Revenue reduction becomes hugely beneficial by limiting your losses. You can avoid cost damages that may be caused by downtime, management issues, or technical assistance expenditure.
• Safeguard business operations: Minimize the interruption of critical processes and ensure business continuity by using a disaster recovery software program. Having a solution will help restore business operations back to normal more quickly.
• Protect your business reputation: Your organization's reputation can suffer if downtime causes unexpected incidents. With a disaster recovery solution, you can maintain your corporate image and prevent irreversible damage.
• Granular management: It is easier to manage replications granularly, restoring data at a file level or an even smaller unit.
• Performance: Another benefit of disaster recovery systems is that you can be assured there will be no impact on performance, allowing business to resume as though no interruptions occurred.
• Customization: Disaster recovery software solutions can be controlled and customized as needed, at any time. For example, you can control the replication frequency and also choose the best recovery times that work specifically for your business. And you can do so whenever it is most convenient for you.