Expect the Unexpected

Natural Disasters. Viruses. Human Error.

Dell knows that your data is at risk, and even a minor mishap — a broken office sprinkler system, for instance — can cause significant data loss and lead to business failure.

We also know that your company's primary defense against such risks is proper planning.

More than ever, data forms the foundation of daily business operations. Yet many company leaders often fall short of developing a comprehensive disaster recovery plan as part of their core operation strategies, especially one that includes the vital component of off-site backup.

You may think you have a disaster recovery plan in place, but if it’s not properly thought out, your business could suffer — permanently.
Managers often assume that, despite inconveniences leading to inefficiency, business can continue as usual.

Your team may believe that, if one computer fails, the rest of the company’s data is safe. They imagine servers are secure considering on-site data backup from one server to another sufficient protection.

But, What Can Really Take Place?

Consider the possibility of your office being flooded by a storm or of hackers breaching the company firewall. All on-site data is wiped out. If your company failed to invest in a data archive, it would now be too late. Data recovery would be almost impossible — adversely affecting the profitability, reputation and long-term viability of your business.

Obviously, businesses that experience this level of data loss without a backup, recovery and archive plan will have a hard time rebounding.

Why Comprehensive?

With the inability to deliver services and the resulting loss of income that immediately follows, an unplanned data loss event can hurt your business. This is not what causes eventual failure.

Rather, the long-term destructive impact to intrinsic business assets is what proves to be the deathblow. This includes:

• Loss of reputation and brand loyalty
• Loss of customers to competitive businesses
• Loss of business funding

In an era of data-driven business, it is crucial that companies cover all potential risks with a comprehensive plan — instead of depending on reactive scrambling after the fact.

Off-site Storage

Incorporating off-site data storage is no longer a luxury; it is now essential for your business’s backup and recovery plan. And when off-site storage is employed properly, in the event of data loss, you may not have to reconstruct data for more than one business day. This will enable quick restoration of systems, applications and associated data.

When implementing an off-site storage program, you should consider:

• Developing a rotation system for varying storage durations
• Knowing how your data is transported and stored at the off-site 
• Developing your plan for timely retrieval of data stored off-site

It is also extremely important that you conduct periodic inventory and testing of stored data to ensure all required backup materials are in good order.

Planning and Preparing for Recovery

Making provisions to back up your company's data is just as important as planning for future growth. Your business can only develop if it is able to maintain and protect its status. Having continual and immediate access to data will help ensure normal operational activity.

Successful plans demand solutions that companies can map to business requirements, including scaling for business expansion. Utilizing the full range of scalable hardware from Dell — along with our data backup, access, security and recovery planning services — will help you achieve this.

Backup and Recovery Solutions

To avoid permanently losing data and the damaging effect this could have, your business needs to plan for disaster — before it happens.

Dell experts have designed a full range of systems, storage and services to help protect your business from catastrophic data loss.

Today, smart data planning, which must include off-site backup, ensures that at least one of these systems is in place:

• Tape Backup — Cost-effective backup solution for large amounts of data and long-term archiving. Tape media is highly portable and can be taken off-site easily for added data protection (preferably daily). However, data may take longer to access from tape backup during recovery. 
• Disk Backup — Data backup made to disk on-site and automatically copied to off-site disk. Restoring data from disk is faster, easier and more reliable compared with tape.
• Networked Storage — Multiple on-site servers that can replicate data in real time to an off-site location. This eliminates the need to restore data, should a loss occur (only systems, not data, need to be restored or synced) — meaning nearly instantaneous re-access to data.  

Partnering With Dell

Successful data loss planning demands an experienced technology partner.

Choosing Dell means that, along with having access to a full range of proven hardware, your business can also tap into a vast, globally experienced expertise base for:

• Designing and implementing long-term data backup 
• Maintenance, recovery and archive management services 

With Dell, you can make your backup and recovery investment work harder, and your company more secure.

Find out more by speaking to your Dell representative or browsing Dell.com. We’ll help you determine your needs and discover the most cost-effective solution.