What is disaster recovery software? Disaster recovery software is software whose main objective is to thwart catastrophic events that can damage a computer, network, or server. In other words, the software aims to facilitate a backup and restoration solution and is typically installed on computers and/or servers to enable synchronization and data/file recovery. In addition, disaster recovery software is designed to constantly monitor changes and ensure backup of those changes consistently. In the case that a main system is unavailable, virtual machines on standby are used to achieve business continuity.
Disaster recovery software is an integral piece of a business's operating system, and PeerSpot's users have narrowed down the many available features and determined which are most essential. According to their evaluations, ease of testing and end user use were high on the list, with overall functionality and smooth compatibility with other major platforms ranked as equally important.
Disaster recovery software is important because if an organization does not have a backup strategy in place, normal business operations and critical business functions will suffer greatly and it will be more difficult to regain access and functionality to your IT infrastructure in the case of a disaster. By implementing disaster recovery software, you are able to ensure that your systems will be back online as soon as possible and business operations can resume as normal. Most importantly, disaster recovery plans shield your organization from unforeseeable and immeasurable losses.
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: