We won’t take on a new customer for ongoing support unless they agree to have a backup server.
Not tapes. Not an external hard drive. And any time we have been assured “we have that covered”… They haven’t.
No, you need a backup server.
At least that’s a minimum. But I’ll tell you, as the cloud matures, I think any disaster recovery plan that doesn’t include cloud services has a gaping hole in it.
I’ve recovered a lot of servers (hardware failures happen more often than you think). But disaster isn’t always failed server hardware. Many times it’s a power surge or failure that takes out all your equipment. It’s an internet outage with no ETA for repair. Or it’s a fire/flood/name your natural disaster.
When these things happen, we know the data is safe and sound, but what about business continuity?
Enter cloud services.
We are huge proponents of Office 365. Heaven forbid, your office could burn to the ground. All you really need to do to get back to work is go home and fire up the home computer. Email? Check (Exchange in the cloud). Documents? Check (SharePoint in the cloud).
If you have a hosted server, you could even still have access to all of your applications.
This is the difference between backup and disaster recovery planning/business continuity planning.
I can keep your “stuff” safe with a physical box, but cloud services are required to keep your business running no matter what happens.
