This is why data resilience is a crucial issue today. If access to data is lost, due to a cyberattack or natural disaster, businesses can no longer function properly. A resilient organization must therefore have the appropriate backup and recovery processes in place that will allow it to bounce back quickly in any situation where data is compromised.
Data resilience is not a one-size-fits-all solution. It is a collection of technologies and strategies that help maintain data availability and accessibility, thereby minimizing disruptions or downtime that could cause tangible and intangible losses to businesses.
Among these data resilience technologies are clustered storage, data replication, backup and disaster recovery… All help to minimize the damage caused by cyber threats, such as ransomware, and by any type of disaster, such as Natural disasters. Having these elements that contribute to data resiliency in place can help businesses get back on their feet as quickly as possible with minimal data loss.
Indeed, the essential measure of data resilience is how quickly the business can recover from a disruption and get back to normal. Having the right technologies and mindset helps protect data in the event of a disaster. This includes having the right technologies, such as data backup and recovery solutions, and the right strategies, such as simulating a business interruption to assess resiliency.
Another crucial element of data resiliency is the ability to perform regular testing so you can identify potential issues before they even occur. Unfortunately, many organizations don’t test their data resilience plan. Many of them do not have a plan as such. At a minimum, organizations should prioritize periodic testing of their ability to back up and recover data to ensure they can reliably restore it in the event of a cyberattack or natural disaster.
Any solid data resiliency strategy includes recovery point objectives (RPOs) and recovery time objectives (RTOs) and lists the means in place to achieve them.
RPO is the critical metric established for the type of data the organization can afford to lose in the event of a disaster. The RPO plays a critical role in helping to determine how often data backups should be performed and the infrastructure companies need to support their backup plan. RPO is less about actually executing the recovery and more about establishing the framework. In the event of the need for data recovery, businesses will be able to obtain all the data they need to operate.
In contrast, RTO is a metric that one can use to understand the impact of downtime on businesses. Once the RTO is defined, the business is better able to make informed decisions about its data resilience plan. For example, if the business can only sustain an hour or two of downtime, it will need to invest in a disaster recovery solution that enables business recovery within that allotted time.
The success of any data resilience initiative depends on the quality of planning and testing of processes and tools. Planning is 90% of successful restoration plans.
Of course, companies must hope for the best, but they must also prepare for the worst. When it comes to data resiliency, having a reliable and solid plan in place will make the difference between a successful business and an underprepared business after a data loss. Recent studies have shown that companies hit by ransomware or other data loss struggle to regain consumer trust. A survey found that 88% of customers would not use services or buy products from an organization they distrust, while 39% said they lost trust in a company due to a breach or misuse of data. This can have devastating long-term effects on a business’s survival and growth and data loss has too often forced some businesses to shut down completely.
Data is therefore vital for companies and when they lose access to it, they also lose their ability to grow, and to move forward in order to become sustainable. Data resilience, on the other hand, gives every organization the ability to recover quickly from a destructive event and thrive in the digital economy.
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