In today’s digital workplace, data loss can strike at any moment. Whether caused by ransomware, human error, hardware failure or natural disaster, the impact of losing access to your systems and files can be severe. And yet, a recent survey revealed that only 16% of businesses were able to recover critical applications in 1 day, and nearly 50% of businesses took a week or more to recover – if at all.
For any business, especially small to medium-sized enterprises, that kind of delay can mean lost revenue, reputational damage and customer dissatisfaction. To protect against this, every organization needs a business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) strategy that allows for rapid recovery. The goal should be to restore critical systems in hours, not days.
Here’s how to build a strong, practical business continuity and disaster recovery strategy that supports cyber-resilience and fast recovery.
Know Your RTO and RPO
Before you put any technical measures in place, it’s important to define two key terms: your Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO).
- RTO is how quickly you need your systems back online after a disruption.
- RPO is how much data loss you can tolerate, measured in time. For example, if your last backup was 12 hours ago, you risk losing 12 hours of data.
Clear RTO and RPO targets help guide your backup schedule, your technology choices and your recovery testing.
Follow the 3-2-1-1-0 Backup Rule
A proven framework for backup planning is the 3-2-1-1-0 strategy:
- Keep 3 copies of your data
- Store them on 2 different types of media
- Have at least 1 backup stored offsite
- Keep 1 backup that is offline, air-gapped or immutable
- Ensure 0 backup errors by testing regularly
This strategy builds both resilience and redundancy into your backup environment. If one copy is compromised, you have others to fall back on. If your local environment is hit by ransomware, you still have a remote or immutable copy to recover from.
Use Immutable and Air-Gapped Backups
Ransomware is one of the biggest threats to modern businesses. If backups are not protected, attackers can encrypt or delete them, making recovery impossible.
That’s why immutable backups and air-gapped storage are so important. Immutable backups cannot be altered or deleted during a set retention period. Air-gapped backups are kept separate from your main systems, so they remain untouched if your network is compromised.
BackupAssist’s cloud immutability feature (beta) provides exactly this kind of protection, allowing you to store disk-image backups securely in the cloud, shielded from tampering.
Enable Ransomware Protection
Even the best backup plan is vulnerable without protection from cyber threats. CryptoSafeGuard is BackupAssist’s built-in ransomware defense tool that detects suspicious activity and prevents infected files from being backed up.
This helps ensure that your backups are clean and recoverable. It acts as a final line of defense, giving you peace of mind that your recovery points haven’t been compromised.
Automate Your Backups and Test Your Restores
Manual backups are easy to forget. Set up automated backup schedules so that your data is protected regularly and reliably.
Equally important is the ability to restore from your backups. A backup you can’t restore is no better than no backup at all. Schedule test restores on a regular basis to make sure everything works. This is part of the “zero errors” goal in the 3-2-1-1-0 rule.
BackupAssist includes tools that make both automated backups and test restores simple, even for users who aren’t IT specialists.
Follow Industry Best Practices
There’s no one-size-fits-all backup plan, but there are best practices that apply to all businesses. We’ve developed a series of guides to help you get started with your BCDR planning. These resources walk you through how to determine your RTOs and RPOs, and how to design a backup strategy that fits your business needs.
Check out our best practice guides on Determining Your Backup Objectives and Designing Your Backup Strategy for practical steps you can take now to define your BCDR plan.
Conclusion
If you haven’t reviewed your recovery processes in a while, now is the time. A well-planned business continuity and disaster recovery strategy can mean the difference between a temporary hiccup and a major business crisis.
By defining your RTO and RPO, implementing the 3-2-1-1-0 backup rule, protecting against ransomware and automating your backup tasks, you’ll be building a foundation for business continuity and cyber-resilience. With BackupAssist’s features like CryptoSafeGuard, immutable backups and test restore tools, recovery becomes something you can count on.
New to BackupAssist? Start your free 30-day trial today.
