How You Can Prepare Your Business For Disaster
For most people, when we hear a phrase like, “disaster preparedness,” we think of drills or evacuation strategies. We might also make a mental note to review emergency exit locations with employees or have a plan of action if something were to take place, but that is all.
Disaster preparedness in business actually involves much much more than just understanding where to go in the event of an emergency, especially since disasters are not always physical. Many of you know that disasters can also be, and most likely are, virtual too! They can come in the form of an online attack or outage or even network failures. Businesses that fail to fully prepare themselves for potential disasters could face negative consequences when it comes to the day-to-day operations of their business.
To alleviate your business’s risks of consequences from a disaster it is essential to take steps now to develop a preparedness plan for your business that will help your organization withstand the unexpected. When creating your preparedness plan, you should consider the following points:
Financial Management – Evaluate all of your organization’s financial responsibilities, such as payroll and regular bills, because these obligations won’t vanish even if you’re consumed in a disaster. Having all account and billing information in a safe, accessible place will help you stay on top of your finances even if a disaster were to occur.
Communication Strategies – Your business contains external parties such as partners, clients, customers, etc., and also internal parties like your employees. All parties will likely need to be knowledgeable on all information regarding the plan of action if a disaster were to have an effect on your business. Whether it is via company website, email, blog, phone, etc., a point person should be chosen to be responsible to communicate what to do in the effect of a disaster to all parties involved.
Data Backup – Your business’s data is one of its most valuable assets! You should backup your data every day! You can do so through a number of ways, for more information visit our ExchangeDefender CloudShare page. CloudShare allows you to pick folders to sync between your systems with documents always securely stored in the cloud and available to you whenever you need them, where ever you want them.
Cloud-Based Software – Moving some or all of your software to cloud-based versions of the same programs is another alternative to data backup, since these solutions automatically store data in secure, offsite locations and make it accessible to you from virtually anywhere.
Technology updates – Maintaining updated technology will inevitably help your business avoid virtual disaster, since updates generally include security patches that guard your network from the latest digital threats.
Take advantage of LiveArchive!
ExchangeDefender protects businesses and organizations of all sizes, everyday – no matter what! This is what made has made ExchangeDefender’s LiveArchive an unquestionable leader in business continuity for all companies with redundant Internet connections, large maintenance windows and an all-Microsoft network infrastructure.
As I mentioned above, preparedness and business continuity are all about planning how to keep the business up and running in the face of any of those things that can put a road block up or stop operations altogether. When LiveArchive is needed it can be enabled and the client is back in business!
LiveArchive uses ExchangeDefender’s secure standby servers, up to a year’s worth of inbound and outbound email is available and accessible through Outlook Web Access at all times. Neither you nor your client has to actively manage this service in any way – the LiveArchive service is always enabled to ensure that no matter what, whether the power goes out in the office or anything else happens, users will always be able to access critical email and stay productive and continue working. It’s always on, powered by Exchange 2010 across two data centers, archives sent and received mail, and there is no need for software installation. LiveArchive and the ability for users to resume work right where they left off no matter what happens – is included with every ExchangeDefender account. LiveArchive goes to work when an outage or disaster happens – you can depend on LiveArchive!
For more guidance on readying your business for disaster, visit www.exchangedefender.com/livearchive.php, where you can access more information on what your options are during an outage or disaster. And as always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact us!
Stephanie Hasenour
VP Marketing, ExchangeDefender
stephanie@ownwebnow.com