A formal disaster recovery plan is necessary to ensure your business can survive a crippling outage or breach. In fact, a recent study published by the Ponemon Institute found that companies with effective disaster recovery plans recover faster and lose less money when they are hit by a data breach. 
In addition to data breaches, SMBs can also face disruption from weather events such as hurricanes, winter storms, and earthquakes. The best way for a small business to ensure continuity during a disaster is to have an effective DR plan in place.
However, formulating an effective DR plan can be difficult. There are several challenges that keep small and medium-sized companies from implementing effective DR plans.
For instance, only a mere 8% of SMBs say they are capable of restoring service in less than one hour following a major IT failure. The longer a company is unable to provide service, the more revenue it loses. Today’s customers expect businesses to be available, no matter how big or small they are and despite any internal failures. When a small business loses service, its reputation suffers just like that of an enterprise that experiences the same misfortune.
DR Challenges Faced by SMBS
Here are some of the challenges that keep SMBs from establishing effective disaster recovery plans:
- The ability to keep their primary and secondary sites synchronized
- The cost of creating a DR infrastructure
- The disruption caused by necessary DR testing
How SMBs Can Overcome Their DR Challenges
Moving DR to the cloud helps your company meet these challenges with cost-effective and reliable disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS). Many SMBs don’t have the in-house expertise and infrastructure to create a robust disaster recovery plan. By utilizing the expertise and infrastructure offered by a Disaster Recovery as a Service provider, SMBs can have the same level of resilience as enterprises.
Automatic Synchronization
With DRaaS, your data is automatically backed up to a remote location in the cloud. Changes are replicated in real-time so you always have an up-to-date backup of your critical business data. If your primary location is ever affected by a significant IT failure, the system will automatically switch to the backup for a near-real-time recovery.
Instant DR Infrastructure
Many small and medium businesses cannot afford to build their own backup DR infrastructure. Cloud-based DRaaS provides instant low-cost infrastructure. To build your own DR infrastructure, you’ll need to make an expensive capital investment. DRaaS is a service, so you can budget it as a monthly operating expense.
Minimal Disruption From DR Testing
Another common obstacle for SMBs is coming up with the time and expertise to run DR tests. While DR tests are critical for effective DR planning, many businesses struggle to fit them into their production schedules. DRaaS systems are automatically tested in the background so that they cause minimal disruption.
Although SMBs do face serious challenges in disaster recovery, DRaaS offers an affordable way for small and medium businesses to implement a robust disaster recovery plan to protect their valuable business assets. FirstLight offers business customers a robust cloud infrastructure and 9,600 route miles of redundant fiber optic network at an affordable monthly subscription rate.
Wondering how much downtime could cost your company? Click our downtime calculator to learn how downtime might impact you.
