As hurricane season is upon is, this article helps you find what you need to know to get a hurricane preparedness plan for your firm's IT. Nobody wants to hear about it or think about it, but the fact of the matter is hurricane season is upon us. Hurricane season officially started on June 1st and runs through November 30th in the Atlantic. While risking sounding like a home improvement store commercial, are you prepared for hurricane season?

Hurricane preparedness for your business IT systems consists of a proper disaster recovery plan. A proper disaster recovery plan consists of a tested, functional image based backup system that is rotated or replicated offsite. Most firms have some type of backup in place, but has the backup system been tested? Does anyone in the office really have a plan to get the office back up and running if disaster strikes? These are all very important questions and should be answered as part of your firm’s disaster recovery plan.

A proper test of your firm’s disaster recovery plans involves more than just recovering a file or two and calling your test complete. A full restoration of your image based backup to another physical server is the best way to find out if your backup will truly keep you protected if you need to rebuild at another location. Software suites such as Symantec System Recovery allow you to take the image from your current server and place it onto a new server with different hardware, or in a pinch, one could even restore to a powerful workstation as a temporary solution.

To summarize what was said above, here is what your disaster recovery plan should entail:

Image based backup system
Offsite rotation or replication of backups
Yearly test restore of backups to physically different or spare hardware
A detailed plan of action: What to do? Who to call?
Multiple office users aware of backup procedures in case someone is unavailable if disaster strikes

Infostream can help guide your firm to a successful disaster recovery plan. If you have any questions at all, please feel free to contact us through our website http://www.infostream.cc or call us at 561.968.0046, as we are here for you!

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