Data is a vital part of your organization. This is what drives business decisions and issues often pop up when data isn’t available. Whether the data loss is caused by natural or manmade disasters, business operations can grind to a halt when it’s not available.
While you can’t prevent every type of disaster, you can take steps to help protect your data. Achieving data resiliency should be a primary goal and this means going beyond backing up your information at regular intervals.
If you’re not sure if your organization has a data resiliency strategy or if yours is truly effective, here are some steps to help ensure your data is always available.
What is Data Resiliency
Before getting into the steps of an effective data resiliency strategy, it helps to know what it means. In simple terms, data resiliency ensures your organization’s data is always available and usable.
Whether it’s a manmade disaster like human error or a natural one like a sitewide power failure, data resiliency means you can still locate, access, and use your stored information.
Developing an Effective Data Resiliency Strategy
As you’re creating an effective strategy there’s something to keep in mind. Your strategy will only be as good as the team members implementing the practices. This means bringing your team members on board. They’ll need to provide a coordinated response if a disaster happens.
Identify Your Important Assets and Risk Tolerance
Chances are your organization has a lot of data coming in. Some of the data is essential for daily operations and other bits you may rarely use. Don’t worry about data that’s not really necessary. This isn’t where you want to focus your time or resources.
Instead, focus on critical data. You know the information necessary to keep your business up and running. This is the data you want to protect. Now, take a look at the potential risks. For example, what happens to a system if the data is lost? What effect will it have on your organization? Can you support a long downtime?
The answers to these questions will help you identify the data and systems your strategy should work to protect.
Decide on the Systems You Need to Strengthen and Protect
Okay, your organization probably has several systems. Some are vital and others can hum along in the background only being occasionally accessed. In a perfect world, you’ll have the resources to protect everything but this is rarely reality. The time and costs necessary to protect everything can be astronomical, especially for smaller organizations with limited budgets.
Deciding on which systems are absolutely necessary gives you a good starting point. Your data resiliency strategy should start with these systems. From there, if feasible, you can move on to less critical components.
Get Realistic About the Potential Threats
Yes, there are countless threats and it’s not realistic to think you can plan for every disaster. If you’re located in an area prone to natural disasters like hurricanes, then power failures are probably one of your top threats. Are you storing consumers’ personal protected information (PPI)? If so, cybersecurity attacks may be one of your primary threats.
Figuring out your potential threats will make it easier to create an effective data resiliency strategy. You’ll take a different approach for each type of threat whether it’s an extended power outage or a cyberattack.
Protect Your Assets
Backing up your data is a start. A quick tip is to store copies of your data offsite. Take advantage of the cloud. You can choose from various cloud models to meet your organization’s needs. If you’re concerned about potential breaches in the cloud, a private cloud may be the ideal solution. Only you and other authorized team members have access to the data.
Some other steps you may want to take can include patching and securing endpoints, hackers often target this potentially vulnerable area. This may also be where you want to run regular security audits. The audit can help identify other potential risks that can be overlooked by IT personnel. Don’t forget about your framework for data governance. Is it enough to ensure industry compliance even if a disaster happens?
The last thing you want on top of a disaster is to also find yourself dealing with compliance issues. The fines for non-compliance can be steep and there’s also the concern of what it can do to your brand reputation.
Automate Whenever Possible
Human error is a primary cause of data loss. Staff can forget to backup data or run a risk assessment audit. An effective way of avoiding these and other problems is to take advantage of automated practices. This strategy also comes with additional benefits.
You typically get faster response times in the event of a disaster. This means you recover your data faster and get your systems back up and running in minutes instead of hours or even days. Responses to disasters are more predictable.
In other words, you have a better idea of what to expect if something goes wrong. Instead of panicking and wondering when system operations will be restored, you know you’ll be back in business in no time.
A major benefit of automating tasks is the cost-savings. For many organizations, the savings are enough to push them to take advantage of automation.
Keep Backing Up Your Data
Even though this has been previously mentioned, backing up your data is a crucial part of any data resiliency strategy. Think of it as you can never have too many copies of your data. Along with taking advantage of cloud storage, consider going old-school.
You may want to save some crucial system information on discs or servers located offsite. The goal is to ensure you can always access your data regardless of the type of disaster.
Data Resiliency Helps Keep Your Business Running
Your organization’s operational integrity and strategic decision-making hinge on the reliability and accessibility of its data. Thus, prioritizing data availability is not just sensible but critical. This necessitates the formulation and implementation of a robust data resiliency strategy, one that comprehensively identifies potential risks and vulnerabilities.
Automation of data protection processes and consistent data backup practices are fundamental to this strategy. Strengthening your data resiliency not only safeguards your organization’s information assets but also ensures business continuity and resilience in the face of unexpected challenges.
