In our modern corporate world where data
and important documents are primarily kept in soft copies, proper security of the
data center is of utmost importance. As tremendous amount of data is stored in
every data center, an occurrence of a disaster may affect the business
negatively. Disaster can be of two forms, i.e. man-made and natural. Disasters
such as theft and terrorism are categorized in man-made disasters whereas
natural disasters are earthquake, hurricanes, tsunami, etc. In either case, it
is important for the owners of the data center to take proper precautions.
As prevention is always better than cure,
data centers must have a plan so that they can avoid certain disasters and
recover to the best possible state. Disaster preparedness is a procedure which
is followed by many data centers to minimize the damage to the business in case
of disaster occurrence. Some firms think that backing up data automatically is
the cheapest and best possible way for disaster preparedness. But, these firms
are the ones that face major losses because disaster preparedness is never so
easy and quick. It requires regular effort and time to keep the preparedness up
to date. One should always adopt disaster preparedness measures because it is
the most imperative part of disaster recovery.
· (a)
Forecast: It is crucial to stay updated about
the things happening around you because it gives you a rough idea about the
probability of disaster occurrence near your data center. Real-time monitoring
and using forecasting tools can prove to be effective. Once the time left to
prepare for disaster is known, you can execute the imperative disaster
preparedness steps accordingly.
·
(b)
Redundancy: Backing up your data is of
utmost importance. The backup should be stored in a source that can respond and
assist during unfavorable events. Building up various redundancy levels is
crucial so that the application priority tier can persist during the emergency
period.
·
(c)
Power Management: As data centers use a
tremendous amount of data, the presence of a proper power supply is obligatory.
You should design backup power supply in such a way that nothing can interrupt
it easily. Adding to it, the UPS and generators should be flexible enough to be
shifted to another site before, during or after the disaster.
·
(d)
Determine Priorities: You should know
the importance of various application tiers present in your data center.
Application tiers are identified in three categories i.e. mission critical,
highly desirable and non-essential. Resources should be allocated on the basis
of priorities.
· (e)
Multiple plans: Disasters are of
different types so their effects differ as per its occurrence. Hence, you should have several business
continuity and disaster recovery plans. Considering adverse situations and
preparing accordingly can prove to be useful at the time of disaster.
· (f)
Reliability: Checking the backups stored
in sources increases the reliability. Knowing the fact that your business can
recover to the last stored backup keeps you free from the risk of heavy loss
and enhances reliability of the source.
It's
difficult to execute all the steps of data preparedness single-handedly. But,
never try to bargain with the disaster preparedness of your data center.
Creating a team of professionals who can maintain and improve business
continuity plan timely is recommendable because it has proved to be beneficial
for many large data centers in the past.
Asia’s largest Tier 4 certified data center, CtrlS Data center India provides Dedicated
Server hosting, Cloud hosting, colocation services, managed and cheap VPS Host
services in India and abroad. To know more about visit https://www.ctrls.com
