Does Your Disaster Recovery Plan Pass the “No Internet” Test?

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How robust is your disaster preparedness and recovery plan? At home, you probably have a first aid kit and some emergency equipment like flashlights, batteries, blankets, and a few other must-have things.

For a business to continue to function after a disaster, you need more than a few supplies. You need a consistent and cohesive recovery plan. You have to plan for many types of disasters—weather events, data breaches, system failures, power outages, and more.

The key question that the plan has to answer is: How will you minimize disruptions in the event of a natural or man-made disaster? 

How Will a Storm Impact Your Business?

The derecho that swept Iowa in August 2020 left countless homes and businesses in the dark—literally. Most businesses have backup electricity generators, so it’s fairly easy to power your computers. But will you have access to your data? Will you be able to serve your customers, even if you only have basic services?

Many companies can’t. That’s because some companies still use on-premises hosting. And for those that host in the cloud, most forget that you have to have internet access to retrieve your cloud-hosted digital assets. If you don’t have power, you may not have internet access.

Where can you store your data and backups so you can access everything in a crisis? One option is a data center.

Safeguard Your Data and Your Access to it

It’s been years since we could start saying this with certainty: a company’s most valuable asset is its data. All your customer records, business plans, correspondence, financial records, and more are most likely entirely digital. 

This offers unparalleled flexibility, but it also comes with a higher degree of responsibility. When it comes to data, you have an obligation to your business and its stakeholders to safeguard it and make sure that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.

You are also responsible for uninterrupted access to it, come what may. There are certain industries that can’t afford to close up shop—not even when a disaster hits. The financial industry is one example. When a disaster happens, people want to get more supplies and they need money for that. Their access to their own money is the banks’ responsibility.

Community banks in Iowa, for instance, have new opportunities to ensure access to their data, as well as the safety of their data. Financial information is extremely sensitive—this is why the industry is one of the most susceptible to cyberattacks. Healthcare and telecommunications are two other examples of heavily regulated industries that need to take disaster recovery seriously. 

What can businesses do to make sure their data is safeguarded and easy to access? Find a solution that fits your disaster recovery plan needs.

The Cornerstone of Your Disaster Recovery Plan—Data Storage that Fits Your Needs

We’ve said it before—there is no one-size-fits-all in data storage. But there is something all businesses need when it comes to storage: flexibility.

Flexibility and scalability are the most touted benefits of cloud storage. However, cloud computing has its own disadvantages. When you opt for cloud storage, you usually don’t have a clue about where in the world your data is stored. It can be in the neighboring state or in Asia.

And you don’t care too much about it because you can access your files via the internet. Until a disaster happens, of course. This is where colocation comes into play. Colocation offers the best of cloud computing and on-premises storage.

Data center colocation is the ideal solution for companies that don’t have the resources or the need for their own data center but need the security and physical safety benefits that come along with one. 

The data center provider offers the physical space and the racks, along with on-going maintenance work, a team of cyber-security specialists, support, and power (with many levels of backups). The physical equipment that goes in the racks, and the data stored on it, is yours.

Colocation is just as flexible and as easily scalable as cloud storage. Plus, it comes with price predictability and a fair, transparent pricing model. You know exactly where your data is stored and how you can access it in case of a disaster. If you need to recover and reboot your business, you can coordinate with the data center to retrieve your digital (and/or physical) assets.

Hosting in a data center comes with strong security and safety and is ideal for heavily regulated industries. For example, at Heartland Technology Data Center, we have our SOC2 certification, which means our security practices are independently verified.


Need to know more about how colocation is different from cloud storage?

Download our free whitepaper!

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Want to make sure your disaster recovery plan passes the “no internet” test? We’ve got you covered!

Get in touch with our experts for a free consulting session on the best solutions for your needs or for a tour of our facility.