Disaster Recovery Options With Your Web Server Hosting Company
Posted on March 8th, 2012
Accessibility and backup of your data should be one of the most important issues to think about when it comes to your web hosting, whether your business uses dedicated servers, cloud technologies, or a combination of the two.There needs to be a strong disaster recovery plan laid out before subscribing to a hosting service to avoid the possibility of lost data. In this regard, the first thing that you should try to understand is what exactly a disaster recovery plan should accomplish for you based on your needs.
The most important goal of disaster recovery is foremost to restore services with the help of your hosting provider in event of a disaster or human error by your IT staff.
When it comes to web server hosting, disasters can vary depending on your web hosting solution. Obviously, a server that goes offline and blacks out completely is likely to be a disaster for every business. This can be caused by a faulty hard drive on the server, a member of your IT staff accidentally removing the wrong file, or hackers just to name a few. Any one of these can results in hours or days to recover. Without a good disaster recovery plan in place you may not be able to recover at all.
But what about a drop for only a couple of minutes? For businesses that make use of high transaction solutions at a high volume, such a situation can still have fatal consequences and requires immediate disaster recovery measures. The question should always be: “What is your business’s tolerance for downtime?” Of course no business wants to experience downtime or loss of data, but having a realistic understanding of what your business can tolerate will help formulate a plan.
The goal of turning to a professional web hosting service provider is of course to avoid a disaster from occurring at all. First, discussing the possible impacts that extended downtime can have on your business with your web hosting provider will help them suggest the right disaster recovery measures for you. Second, letting them know your budget up-front so that the appropriate solutions are implemented.
The less potential downtime your business can withstand the more expensive the disaster recovery plan is likely to be, but it is always more affordable than if there’s no plan in place at all and something goes wrong. So knowing your budget and tolerance for downtime are essential. And at the end of the day, it is certainly worth asking the experts as it can literally save your business.