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How to Adapt to Modern Threats and Challenges in the Evolving Disaster Recovery Landscape

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IT infrastructures are becoming more complex as businesses increasingly digitize their operations. At the same time, cyberattacks and natural disasters are occurring more frequently than before, and when these unforeseen events hit, they can bring your operations to a screeching halt. It’s therefore important for organizations to adapt to their disaster recovery strategies so they can survive emerging threats and unpredictable catastrophes. 

Here are some steps your organization can take: 

Get to the cloud

Cloud-based disaster recovery (DR) is the norm for most industries, and for good reason. Data stored off-site is more secure should the disaster affect your business’s location, and the vast resources of a cloud data center enable much faster recovery than simple in-house backup drives. Cloud-based solutions also provide more control over the backup and recovery processes, as they are integrated directly into your existing cloud infrastructure. Plus, the best thing about a cloud solution is you get comprehensive support from your service provider.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for every organization, however. There may be some issues relating to data sovereignty, regulation compliance, and integrations depending on your needs and industry, so it is recommended to carefully evaluate your options and potential service providers for cloud-based DR.

Automate and optimize

DR requires frequent and involved testing, monitoring, and reporting to ensure it is working optimally and keeping your data safe from modern threats. But these time-consuming tasks drain productivity, and can be tedious enough that some organizations reduce their frequency or even forgo them entirely. Automation tools can alleviate this burden and perform DR tasks faster and more accurately in many cases.

Automation and AI can enhance decision-making and streamline coordination in DR activities, including risk assessment, scenario analysis, recovery prioritization, and resource allocation. So not only will your DR be better planned with AI, but you’ll also enjoy a recovery process that is faster and with fewer errors. 

There are some off-the-shelf products that will provide these benefits, but it’s best to have your automated processes developed and customized by a team of DR specialists to better meet your organization’s unique needs.

Keep the human element in mind

With all the talk of AI, IoT, edge computing, and other technology breakthroughs, it can be easy to lose focus on the human component of IT, especially in cybersecurity and DR. It doesn’t matter if you have the latest tools and high-end technologies if your workforce is not able to utilize them properly. 

People are still required for crucial DR operations, including risk identification, plan development, testing, execution, and evaluation. You also need to ensure that when the time comes to actually use your DR solution, your staff can rise to the occasion, overcome fear and stress, and perform their assigned duties quickly and efficiently.

The only way to achieve this is with good old-fashioned practice and training. Have your IT department or IT services provider set up training seminars, tabletop exercises to simulate disaster scenarios, and written DR guidelines for employees.  

Don’t be afraid to reach out for assistance

Unless your organization employs a large number of IT professionals with deep disaster recovery knowledge and expertise, you might not have the workforce required to meet the challenges of the evolving DR landscape. 

But that’s okay. Business IT continues to grow in complexity and scope, so more specialized knowledge is needed each year. Fortunately, these skills can easily be outsourced, giving you the benefits of a modern, customized DR solution without the significant investments of time and money involved in developing one yourself.

At Liberty Center One, automated data protection comes standard with our public and private cloud engagements. All production and backup storage is encrypted using FIPS 140-2 certified AES256 encryption. Nightly snapshots are taken automatically and retained in-region for 30 days and DR snapshots are replicated to a second region every 4 hours and retained for 72 hours. All local and DR backups are immutable, which protects customers from ransomware, infection and human error.


Contact the cloud and DR specialists at Liberty Center One, and our experienced consultants will show you how to create and easily maintain a DR system that protects your vital data and operations without draining your budget or productivity.

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