Do You Have a Disaster Recovery Plan?
Why a disaster recovery plan is a must-have.
A disaster recovery plan is essential for everyone. Why? Think for just a minute about what you’d do if you lost all of your personal documents. What would you do if you also lost all of the information on your computer? It’s probably an unnerving thought. After all, without all of that information, what would you do if there was an emergency?
Now imagine what would happen if you lost all of that data because there was an emergency. Suddenly it’s not a “what if” scenario, it’s an “oh no” scenario. You don’t have your personal information and it’s during a time that you desperately need it. What do you do? You don’t let it happen in the first place.
Planning Ahead
The first step towards a great disaster recovery plan is great preparation. While there may only be a few reasons that you would lose all of your personal documents, there are a number of reasons why you could lose all of the information on your computer. Because of this, a great disaster recovery plan starts with computer backup.
When preparing your disaster recovery plan, you’re going to want to backup all of your computer information to CD. Make a couple of copies and keep the copies in different places. That way if one copy gets destroyed, you can access another copy.
If you have more than one computer, you’re going to need to backup all of your computers. This is especially true if you travel with a laptop and don’t backup your laptop to your main desktop computer on a regular basis.
Paper Documents
When making your disaster recovery plan, you’re also going to want to scan all of your vital paper documents into your computer in either .pdf or .tiff format. This will ensure that you have all of your vital documents and insurance information should you need it.
A Meeting Place
Of course, with your data backed up and your personal documents in a safe place and on a CD or DVD, you can focus on what really matters -- your family.
While many disaster recovery plans only focus on the data end of the disaster recovery process, I’d like to think that family plays a more crucial role. When creating your disaster recovery plan, set a meeting place with your family members. Whether it be your home or the police station, make sure that your meeting place is accessible by all family members.
By putting together a well-thought-out disaster recovery plan, you’ll be able to handle any disaster in a calm, and well-thought out manner.