- Few organizations are wholly confident in their approach to backup and recovery. While many feel assured that backups are taking place, they are less sure that they will be able to recover the data they need from those backups.
- Many organizations are assuming unnecessary risk by not investing in their backup solution. It often takes the occurrence of a significant disaster before an organization realizes its backup is worth the money, but by then it's too late.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Organizations approach backup from the wrong direction. The emphasis should be on recovery rather than backup. This slight shift in posture can not only lead to a better backup and recovery solution but can help to better convince stakeholders the value of the work the backup team does.
- Data loss is rarely the result of a natural disaster and more frequently caused by human error. Nevertheless, organizations build their backup solution around the former and, as a result, do not have a solution that fits actual need.
- A focus on procedures and processes is a more significant driver of backup success than technology. Focusing efforts on requirements gathering, planning, and documentation is a more effective, cost-efficient path to backup success.
Impact and Result
- Better protect your organization's valuable data with an approach to backup that is based on actual need, rather than a brute force solution that is driven by the backup window.
- Identify where to spend and where to save by matching recovery objectives to the value of your data.
- Create SLAs and SOPs that transform backup into recovery services, clarifying for users their shared responsibilities in ensuring recoverability and improving service offerings.
Workshop: Optimize Backup Operations with a Recovery Services Plan
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Communicate the Value of Backup Optimization
The Purpose
- Identification of backup and recovery challenges faced by most organizations
- Identification of resources that require backup and recovery services
- Identification of issues in the present backup and recovery workflows
Key Benefits Achieved
- Defined value of backup and recovery that justifies expenditures
- More developed sense of what is at risk with a mis-provisioned backup environment
- Strategies for communicating the value of backup and recovery to stakeholders
Activities
Outputs
Inventory critical systems and data that are being backed up
- List of data assets
Map current backup procedures
- Risk assessment
Determine what’s at stake with a risk matrix
Module 2: Determine Recovery Requirements
The Purpose
Determine recovery requirements
Key Benefits Achieved
- Development of recovery requirements for core data sets
- A better understanding of the value of a tiered approach to backup
- A plan for tiered backups that better aligns costs and required quality of service
Activities
Outputs
Identify mission critical business activities
- Documented list of core business activities and related systems
Identify critical applications that support business activities
- List of system dependencies
Identify dependencies
- Documented recovery service tiers
Rank recovery needs of core applications and determine service tiers
Module 3: Evaluate the Impact of Technology on Backup Procedures
The Purpose
Determine how technology will affect backup operations
Key Benefits Achieved
- Assessment of capabilities and shortcomings of the present backup solution
- A developed sense of how storage and backup technology can be used to enhance recovery capabilities
- Avoid domain disputes by clearly assigning ownership of backup and recovery roles
Activities
Outputs
Assess recovery capabilities with a gap analysis
- Recovery capabilities gap analysis
Build a backup schedule from the RPO up
- RPO-driven backup schedule
Assess risk and reward of data being protected
- Documentation of domain ownership
Clarify ownership of backup tasks
- Risk and reward assessment for backed up data
Module 4: Turn Backup into Recovery Services with SLAs and SOPs
The Purpose
Create service level agreements and standard operating procedures that optimize recovery service capabilities
Key Benefits Achieved
- A strategy to better communicate the value of backup and recovery to stakeholders and users
- A standardized approach to backup and recovery that can help improve confidence in the solution
- An agreement that outlines end user’s role in ensuring recoverability
Activities
Outputs
Document the present service level agreement for data recovery
- Backup and recovery SOPs
Plan the recovery response workflow
- Recovery SLAs
- Recovery response workflow