4 Common Technology Disasters That Can Hurt Your Business
When we think about the problems that a business can face, we tend to think about financial issues, or perhaps internal difficulties with employees, or something similar. There are, however, more significant disasters that can befall a business, and often we are not prepared for them.
Your IT network can prove to be particularly vulnerable and given that information technology is a vital part of any business, protecting it should be one of your primary concerns.
So, what are the 4 most common disasters that can hurt your business?
Hardware/ Software Disasters
A company’s data includes all of the files accessed and used by employees in the course of doing their jobs. If there should happen to be a software or hardware failure, there would be a considerable impact on employee productivity.
If, for example, a manufacturing company suffers a hardware or software failure, they would likely not be able to produce and ship their products on time. Recovery could prove difficult, and costly.
It is extremely important for your business to have a strategic plan in place for your server infrastructure. With the right plan and preparation, your business could recover from a problem with little or no loss of productivity or production.
Having a backup plan ensures that your business is able to restore data in the event of a software failure. Within minutes, you could be back in production.
Datacentre Environment Disasters
The physical environment surrounding your datacentre is often overlooked. Any number of potential disasters await in the form of temperature, water pipes, and water sprinklers.
Many businesses do not give much thought to where they store their servers and switching hardware, simply locating them wherever seems convenient, but that could mean they are kept in a room with no air-conditioning, and exposed water pipes, and these conditions could easily destroy your equipment.
Imagine for a moment what might happen if a water pipe in the ceiling were to burst, or if a fire should break out. You would lose all of that technology.
Once again, you should have a disaster recovery plan to cover these kinds of situations. It is also wise to have an off-site backup strategy. Having a backup in a separate, secure location would have you back in business in just a few hours.
In the event of a natural disaster, your business may never bounce back without an adequate recovery plan. Hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes all are capable destroying your IT structure, and if you do not have a recovery plan in place, you may find your business being shut down for good.
An appropriate disaster recovery plan can help you in the relocation of employees to a new location where they can connect with your infrastructure from a separate geo-located datacentre. With proper planning and implementation, your business could be up and running again within 24 hours.
A growing concern for many businesses is the threat of a major security breach. An attack from a hacker could result in the insertion of a virus or spyware/ ransomware. It might also result in intellectual property theft and a severe loss of productivity.
Businesses are attacked by hackers virtually every day, regardless of their size, and each hack results in the theft of valuable data. Considering how much information is kept on even one employees computer, this could be truly worthy of the word disaster.
Your infrastructure needs to be kept safe from such intrusions. Having a firewall that is configured properly with up-to-date security standards would prevent these breaches and serve to protect your data.
With a host of potential disasters capable of severely damaging, or even completely wiping out your business, you must ensure that your IT infrastructure is being analyzed to locate any potential weaknesses in your security. Then, by creating a well-thought-out strategy for protecting and recovering your data, you will ensure that there is no loss of productivity or data in the event of disaster.