Worst practices for backup and disaster recovery

Natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina keep network administrators acutely aware of the need for a solid data backup and disaster recovery plan (DRP) to ensure business continuity. But too many companies observe worst practices, thereby dooming the plan. This article lists a series of some worst practices, in the hopes that showing what happens if you do it wrong will illustrate how to do it right.

Fail to win management support. One of the worst things you can do for just about any IT project is fail to win management support. Without the executives on your side to back you up with the authority and the budget to do the job, the backup and DRP is virtually doomed.

Provide no risk assessment. Without some form of risk or impact assessment, it is impossible to know which assets are critical and which ones are expendable. By wasting resources protecting expendable assets while leaving critical assets out of the plan, you will make the plan a failure.

No written plan. People come and go. Maybe the parties that were present when the backup and DRP was devised were so brilliant they didn't need to write it down. But, if you do not wri...

Digg This!     StumbleUpon     Del.icio.us

RELATED CONTENT Disaster recovery tips Business continuity plan auditing best practices Mapping COBIT and ITIL to your IT disaster recovery process Creating a pandemic response for your disaster recovery plan Acquiring key personnel to maintain and update your disaster recovery plan How to prepare and plan for a pandemic disaster Disaster recovery plan basics: Updating and reviewing DR plans Metrics for measuring business continuity management performance IT disaster recovery and business continuity planning for non-catastrophic disasters Is your disaster recovery (DR) plan out of date? The pros and cons of network-based data replication Disaster Recovery Planning/Management Business continuity plan auditing best practices Using a pandemic recovery plan template: A free download and guide Disaster recovery and business continuity podcasts Mapping COBIT and ITIL to your IT disaster recovery process Creating a pandemic response for your disaster recovery plan Acquiring key personnel to maintain and update your disaster recovery plan Exploring Microsoft Windows clustering and high-availability tools in disaster recovery How to prepare and plan for a pandemic disaster Disaster recovery plan basics: Updating and reviewing DR plans Disaster recovery news briefs: SteelEye supports disaster recovery and business continuity for Windows Server 2008 R2 Disaster Recovery Storage How does data deduplication affect disaster recovery (DR)? Disaster recovery news briefs: IBM announces expanded business continuity services for Tracker Networks Disaster recovery and business continuity podcasts Exploring Microsoft Windows clustering and high-availability tools in disaster recovery Disaster recovery news briefs: SteelEye supports disaster recovery and business continuity for Windows Server 2008 R2 Iowa Health System uses 'cloud' for disaster recovery to survive flood Disaster recovery news briefs: Riverbed updates Riverbed Optimization System software Data deduplication makes disaster recovery and data replication easier IT disaster recovery and business continuity planning for non-catastrophic disasters VMware upgrades Site Recovery Manager for disaster recovery

RELATED RESOURCES 2020software.com, trial software downloads for accounting software, ERP software, CRM software and business software systems Search Bitpipe.com for the latest white papers and business webcasts Whatis.com, the online computer dictionary

te down your well-defined and clearly documented plan so that anyone can follow it, there will be no recovery when the next disaster strikes.

Lack of backup integrity. Many network administrators have a regularly scheduled backup to safeguard critical corporate data. But an oft-repeated worst practice is failing to ever validate the data or verify that you can restore it successfully and in a timely manner in the event of a disaster.

Self-defeating data storage practices. When it comes to backup and DR, offloading critical data from the network onto tapes or other removable media is a best practice. But it can become a worst practice in two ways: One is by keeping the data on-site where it is sure to be destroyed along with the servers it backs up. The second is by storing the removable media at another site that is either insecure itself or is where you cannot easily and quickly retrieve it when you need it.

Do you know...

How to expand the reach of disaster recovery?

DR approaches for your VTL?

Rate this Tip To rate tips, you must be a member of SearchDisasterRecovery.com. Register now to start rating these tips. Log in if you are already a member. DISCLAIMER: Our Tips Exchange is a forum for you to share technical advice and expertise with your peers and to learn from other enterprise IT professionals. TechTarget provides the infrastructure to facilitate this sharing of information. However, we cannot guarantee the accuracy or validity of the material submitted. You agree that your use of the Ask The Expert services and your reliance on any questions, answers, information or other materials received through this Web site is at your own risk.