Defending Your Business Against Natural Disasters: A Look at Data Protection Solutions

Keeping data safe requires protecting it from a number of potential threats. Everyone is aware of the mythical hacker figure, ready to break into sensitive data for personal gain. However, data protection solutions are geared more toward accidents with a focus on disaster recovery. A loss of data accessibility, whether it is temporary or permanent, usually occurs as a result of an accident. A power loss can bring down a system during a critical time, and unprotected equipment can be damaged from a power surge. Natural disasters can also bring about the physical destruction of information technology resources and hardware.

In these cases, Consonus offers a comprehensive suite of disaster recovery and data protection solutions, as well as virtual business continuity services in order to keep data accessible and useable.

Identifying Hazards

The first step in developing data protection solutions is to understand the potential threats to hardware and information. Natural disasters can create a wide range of devastation with effects that can ripple through an entire economy, making disaster recovery plans vital. For example, earthquakes can destroy essential infrastructure that can demolish communications across an entire region, bringing disaster recovery to a halt. Floods can leave areas uninhabitable for days or weeks until water levels recede, mandating robust and long-term data protection solutions. Hurricanes bring about the worst of both worlds with high winds destroying structures and torrential downpours creating flooding, making virtual business continuity very difficult. Disaster recovery and data protection solutions have to keep these possibilities in mind to ensure virtual business continuity.

There are also smaller hazards that are just as disruptive to virtual business continuity. Power outages can collapse entire systems and will typically occur during peak usage, further compounding the problem. Data can be deleted accidentally and require a backup, if available, to be found and accessed to restore the lost information. Hardware can fail, cooling systems can come down, and even vandalism or accidental damage can occur. Data protection solutions and virtual business continuity programs address all of these issues, resulting in a robust disaster recovery plan.

Virtual Business Continuity

Effective data protection solutions boil down to data duplication and access. Having extra copies of mission-critical data that are physically and virtually separated goes a long way to successfully implementing virtual business continuity and preventing a disaster from completely wiping out sensitive information. On the other hand, restoring information that has been lost or destroyed relies on timing. How long can a company wait until their disaster recovery plan kicks in and customer information is restored? Maintaining business operations in the face of disaster recovery procedures is the heart of data protection solutions.

Cloud computing paradigms are extremely useful for data protection solutions. Having software as a service means that vital information resources are hosted remotely, removing the potential of a power loss or disaster that compromises critical business functions. Consonus provides an integrated and comprehensive virtual business continuity suite for both disaster recovery and data protection solutions.

Consonus virtual business continuity integrates both virtualization and storage technologies with a combination of managed IT services to ensure data reliability and accessibility. Data center colocation provides professional IT resources that are secure data housing facilities with power protection safeguards, climate controls, and disaster recovery plans.

Disaster Recovery Solutions

Sometimes the best way to understand virtual business continuity is to look at an example that combines data protection solutions with a disaster recovery plan.

While redundancy is essential for maintaining virtual business continuity, simply having a duplicate of everything will initially double expenses. Effective data protection solutions from Consonus utilize priority tiers and archival levels to segregate resources according to business-functioning importance, disaster recovery speed, and cost. Only mission-critical data is assigned a high priority, offering the benefits of quick recovery times and up-to-date data backups. Archival data is assigned to long-term storage at a reduced cost on a lower priority tier. In this way, each client can maximize virtual business continuity at the most economical price.

In order to safeguard against disaster and provide virtual business continuity, Consonus data centers are spread throughout the United States. Each facility is managed for maximum availability and remote accessibility for clients. The latest in industry standards and technology ensures data reliability and security. Each disaster recovery plan is then tailored to the individual in order to meet all recovery time and point objectives. In addition, Consonus works to ensure compliance with government regulation for record retention in the industries that require compliance, such as HIPPA for healthcare providers.

Consonus provides data protection solutions that cover both natural and manmade disasters while sticking to a strict timeline for disaster recovery to maintain virtual business continuity.