5 tips to stay compliant during disaster recovery

Every business needs a backup and disaster recovery plan. This plan is especially important for businesses in industries with strict regulatory compliance guidelines, like healthcare or banking. But having a recovery plan isn’t enough, you also need to make sure you’re staying compliant during the recovery process.

Here are 5 tips to help you stay compliant during disaster recovery.

1. Ensure backups are compliant

Having a backup of your data puts you ahead of 43% of your competitors, but it is also vital to ensure the backup service you use complies with all data security regulations that apply to your business.

Ask your data backup service provider where they store your data and what security protocols they use to keep it safe. This is particularly important for healthcare businesses, which have to comply with HIPAA.

2. Have more than one backup

A disaster such as an earthquake or hurricane can destroy in-house servers, leaving you relying on backups. However, some disasters can affect wide geographical areas, which means your backups could also be affected if they are located in the same region as your main office.

The best way to ensure you do not lose both your main servers and your backups during a disaster is to keep your backups stored in at least two geographically different areas.

Many cloud backup service providers offer multiple backups spread across a diverse range of locations, but it is always a good idea to check the locations in which your data will be stored rather than simply assuming the company has a robust system in place.

3. Define your recovery goals

When your business is affected by a disaster, how quickly do you need it to be back up and running? Do you have customers depending on you to provide continuous service?

A key part of compliance and disaster recovery planning is deciding how identifying how quickly you need the various parts of your business back functioning at full capacity. Once you put your Recovery Time Object goals in place, you can work toward developing a plan that allows you to minimize downtime and get your business back up and running as quickly as possible.

4. Secure your physical office

During a disaster, you need to consider the physical security of your business property. The chaos that often comes along with a natural disaster, such as a hurricane, can present an opportunity for looters to steal hardware and data from your physical business premises.

When putting together a backup and data recovery plan for your business, be sure to take physical security into account to ensure compliance.

5. Test your plan

Having a plan for compliance and disaster recovery is only the first step in preparing your company to face a disaster. You also need to test your plan to ensure that it will work as you expect if a disaster occurs. Carrying out tests allows you to see the flaws in your current plan so you can address them before a real disaster occurs.

Don’t be caught unprepared. Contact your managed IT services provider for help making sure your recovery plan is compliant and efficient.