Server crashes don’t care if it’s a slow Tuesday. Even small-scale emergencies can cripple your operation if you aren’t prepared. Most businesses run nightly backups of their critical data and think they are covered. But a backup of your files is not the same thing as true disaster recovery. Figuring out you don’t have a complete second infrastructure in place in the middle of a crisis only lengthens downtime and costly revenue loss.

It’s important to understand where backups leave gaps in your business continuity plan and what you can do about it. Backups are a method of archiving older file versions while disaster recovery focuses on rapid redeployment of your entire system. Aligning your technology to meet defined business objectives prevents unexpected outages from turning into financial disasters.

Backup vs Disaster Recovery: What’s the Real Difference?

Backup copies individual files you select. Disaster recovery restores whole servers. 

When the cloud goes down, you need more than just an offsite disk with your files on it. Recovering from a disaster scenario requires your entire OS, applications, configurations, and networking restored at the same time. Backups will protect the data, but do not provide you with servers, virtual machines, or gateways to run applications.

Here is a quick scenario comparing how these strategies would work if your network went down.

You have an on-premises server that runs your company’s billing application. Every night at midnight, a script dumps a copy of the SQL database to another hard drive. One morning, there is a power surge that fries the motherboard of the production server.

• With only backups: The SQL database file will be safe on the external hard drive. However, you will still need to find a replacement server, load your OS, configure logins, reinstall the app, and import the database. The company cannot operate for 48 hours. 
• With disaster recovery: A disaster recovery process automatically provisions a replica of the billing server in a separate cloud environment. Employees can connect to their desktops and continue working in minutes.

Don’t let the confusion around these processes cost your business expensive downtime.

RPO and RTO: How Do They Affect Your Risk Tolerance? 

• RPO = Recovery Point Objective
• RTO = Recovery Time Objective

Every disaster recovery plan is built around two different thresholds. How much data are you willing to lose when the system goes down? How much downtime is too much downtime? RPO and RTO are metrics businesses should understand before an outage occurs.

Compare how different recovery strategies impact your RPO and RTO objectives.

• RPO = The maximum amount of data your company is willing to lose. 
• RTO = The longest amount of time you can afford to be down.

If your business performs a single backup every 24 hours at midnight, and the company loses power at 4:00 PM, you lost 16 hours of data. That is your RPO. If it takes your IT team 3 days to rebuild the server from scratch, that is your RTO.

True Disaster Recovery Quiz 

Let’s see if your infrastructure is prepared for data loss and network outages.

1. If your office was inaccessible tomorrow, what’s the longest it would take for your employees to use their primary business applications?
   1. They would be available immediately through secondary cloud environments.
   2. Somewhere between 1-2 business days after locating backup laptops.
   3. I’m not sure. 
2. How often do you test restoring an entire server?
   1. Twice a year as part of a planned disaster recovery exercise.
   2. Once a year when we verify random folders exist.
   3. We don’t test; our backups finish successfully every time.
3. Does your current solution track and replicate system changes to remote servers throughout the day?
   1. Yes, we use automated system imaging 
   2. No, we do daily backups at night 
   3. I don’t know what our schedule is

Scorecard: 

• If you answered mostly A’s, your infrastructure has some type of cloud replication and high availability solution in place.
• If you answered mostly B’s or C’s, your business relies on traditional backups. You may be exposed if every workstation goes down.

Why Cloud Replication Matters 

It’s more than just backup — it’s continuous failover. 

 

Traditional backup solutions push collections of files to a local hard drive or offsite storage device once every 24 hours. Contemporary business continuity strategies should incorporate cloud replication. Rather than transferring individual files, replication technology creates copies of your servers, applications, and operating systems.

What does that mean for your downtime? If your office is impacted by a network outage or natural disaster, your technology stacks can be activated on cloud servers immediately. Since your applications are running in the cloud, your employees will be working on virtual desktops instead of making do without computers. Business interruptions become short-term inconveniences. 

Building Disaster Recovery You Can Trust 

Include people, processes, and technologies in your plan.

Business continuity planning is a process. It doesn’t happen by just buying a new software package. There are several methodological steps your organization can take today to protect your operations long-term.

Step 1: Know Your Core Applications

List every application, database, and communication tool your business needs to function. Determine which systems need high availability replication and which ones can wait during a disaster recovery scenario.

Step 2: Set your recovery expectations

What RPO and RTO do you expect for each critical system? Transactional databases should have low RPO/RTO values. File directories can probably stand to lose a few hours’ worth of changes.

Step 3: Use Application Level Replication

Stop relying on backup software to perform file copies. Use a replication solution that images your entire server. Make sure the server’s OS, permissions, and folders are being copied over as well.

Step 4: Practice Makes Perfect

Once every six months, your company should failover to your disaster recovery environment. Pretend there was an actual emergency. Run through your process to uncover weaknesses before chaos ensues.

Step 5: Update your Outage Documentation

Create a document that defines who needs to do what if the network goes down. IT Leaders should know who to contact and when. Line employees should know how to communicate if email and phones are not working.

Disaster recovery should be a part of your regular business operations. Taking these proactive steps today can save your company thousands if an unexpected outage occurs.

Avoid Costly Network Outages With Intelinet

Backup and disaster recovery planning is a technical challenge. It takes specialized knowledge and foresight to keep your business agile when every system you rely on goes down. Intelinet Systems provides backup and disaster recovery services that are designed around your business needs. Our cloud replication and monitoring solutions are configured to meet your desired RPO and RTO thresholds so your employees can focus on being productive no matter what.

Work with Intelinet Systems to design a disaster recovery plan that fits with your unique environment. Our certified technicians will assess your network and create a customized solution to protect your data. Contact Intelinet Systems today to learn more about building a comprehensive business continuity plan for your business.

FAQ 

Q. What is the difference between a backup and disaster recovery?

1. Backups are a way to store copies of important files. Disaster recovery encompasses your plan for preventing data loss and recovering servers, applications, and networking after a disruptive event.

Q. How do RPO and RTO affect my business continuity plan?

1. RPO refers to the maximum amount of data your business will tolerate losing when a crisis occurs. RTO defines how long your IT infrastructure can be offline before losing revenue. Setting your RPO/RTO expectations early helps you design a business continuity plan that properly prepares your technology stack for an outage.

Q. Why is cloud replication better than backups? 

1. Unlike traditional backups that only copy files once a day, replication continuously mirrors your virtual servers to a remote location. If your office is impacted by a disaster, you can activate cloned versions of your technology infrastructure instantly, keeping your business running.