Disaster planning within the healthcare industry, or any industry for that matter, is a lot of hoping for the best while preparing for the unexpected. Part of that preparation is assembling some form of a plan for when the inevitable happens. This is where disaster recovery (DR) and disaster recovery services come in.
What is Disaster Recovery?
In its most basic form, disaster recovery is an organization’s system or procedure for regaining access and functionality to its IT infrastructure after it’s been compromised. Disaster recovery works hand-in-hand with ensuring business continuity. You’ll likely need to employ disaster recovery services after events like a natural disaster, cyberattacks, or other disruptions to your business’s ability to function.
What are Disaster Recovery Services?
Disaster recovery services assists businesses through the disaster recovery process. DR relies on the replication of data and computer processing in an off-premises location that has not been compromised. This means that a business would be able to recover any lost data from its second location where the data is being stored. It also means that a business would be better equipped to transfer its computer processing to the same off-site location in order to continue business operations.
Types of Disaster Recovery Services
There are several disaster recovery services businesses can choose to utilize.
BACKUP
The traditional data backup is the easiest and most straightforward DR service. Backup services allow businesses to store data off-site or on a removable drive. Backup is the simplest form of DR but often provides minimal business continuity, considering the IT infrastructure itself is not backed up.
Cold Site
A cold site is when an organization establishes a second location with basic infrastructure in place. This is to provide employees with a place to work if their main location becomes compromised. It’s important to note that cold sites lack a way of protecting or recovering data, which is a key component of disaster recovery. A cold site usually has:
- Little or no equipment
- No network connectivity
- No data synchronization
- High risk of data loss
Hot Site
A hot site is a backup facility that is almost identical to the primary facility. Hot sites can significantly reduce downtime but require lots of capital and time to maintain.
A hot site usually has:
- Fully redundant equipment
- Enabled network connectivity
- Near-real-time data synchronization
- Minimal data loss
Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)
In the event of a disaster or cyberattack, a DRaaS offers services that involve moving an organization’s computer processing to its own cloud infrastructure. The main advantage here is with DRaaS a business can continue operations seamlessly from the vendor’s location, even if the servers are down.
Backup as a Service
This method of DR is when an organization’s data is backed up by a third-party provider, but its IT infrastructure is not backed up. Backup as a Service works similarly to backing up data at a remote location.
Benefits of Disaster Recovery Services
Disaster recovery services are instrumental in creating an effective DR plan. These services will help your business save hundreds and thousands of dollars in the event of a disaster. This can be the key to your organization’s survival. DR services should also help your business get up and running. DR is a whole lot faster than if you were to have no plan at all.
Healthcare organizations will need to have a plan in place to address these challenges and strategies to implement disaster recovery services as needed.
As always, Stringfellow Technology Group is here to help. If you are facing the decision as to which disaster recovery services your organization should implement, don’t hesitate to contact us directly and schedule a meeting. We are Healthcare IT experts and can provide your healthcare organization with a layered approach to secure and back up your most valuable business assets.