Because many organizations - including credit unions - relyheavily on network data to conduct business operations, interactwith members, process payments and provide remote access foroff-site employees, they believe they are protected from data lossor network failure because they have a backup and recovery systemin place.

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Unfortunately, this false sense of security can leave anorganization vulnerable to a lengthy and potentially cripplingbusiness interruption. So much so that many businesses each yearexperience significant loss of revenue, diminished customerconfidence, and yes, even go out of business completely— despite having some type of backup system in place.

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Vulnerabilities of network backup andrecovery

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The “I have a backup system, so I’m covered” mentality ignoresseveral critical factors.

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First, recovering data from backups can take many hours and evendays if associated with hardware failures. Backups can also becomecorrupted and may not be reliable when needed.

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Second, in addition to the critical nature of the data, if thereis a failure of the application, database or e-mail server it canleave the business unable to access that data.

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For this reason, any solution that does not restore the networkto full functionality within minutes — no matter the cause orpoint of failure — is simply unacceptable.

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“In healthcare, the ability to access data is extremelyimportant,” said Justin Huckaby, IT manager at CMA Healthcare, anindependent, multi-specialty medical practice in South Carolina.“Physicians now rely on electronic medical records to make goodhealthcare decisions for their patients. In extreme cases, it canactually be a life or death situation because physicians makedecisions based on the information they can access."

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Immediate access to data is just as important for the NationalService Center, a depot repair shop and spare parts distributor fora variety of industrial barcode and label printers, digitalsignage, wireless networking and RFID systems.

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“We have terabytes and terabytes of data on our servers. Theentire company, as well as field employees and customers are loggedinto the system throughout the entire day,” IT Manager JohnCampbell said. “If our accounting systems were to die, our businesswould close.”

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Business continuity inlayman’s terms

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The odds of a significant network event are much higher thanmost businesses realize. In fact, the IT industry now shies awayfrom the term disaster recovery because it implies rare events suchas a fire or other natural disasters. However, data can becorrupted or lost for a variety of reasons including hardwarefailures of servers, hard drives, user error, malware, file sharingand poor connection issues during remote access.

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As a result, data backup and recovery has evolved into what theIT industry now calls business continuity. The term intentionallyemphasizes the fact that many businesses which rely heavily on datacannot afford to be interrupted or have limited access to recordsfor more than the shortest period of time.

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At its core, there are two fundamental aspects to businesscontinuity. Backups involve copying network data to tapes, networkattached storage, local hardware appliances or the cloud. There aremany inexpensive solutions on the market and most companies havesome form of a backup system in place.

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The other aspect is recovering thatinformation quickly in the event of data loss, corruption or serverfailure. For many businesses, it is this aspect that is the blindspot in the system and leaves them vulnerable to periods ofextended downtime.

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The reality is many difficulties can arise when it is time toretrieve stored information. Retrieving terabytes of data from tapeor the cloud, for example, can take hours or even days depending ondownload speeds. If the cause of the data loss is hardware-related,the restoration cannot even begin until the system is repaired orreplaced.

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Depending on the severity of the issue, this can extend theamount of downtime to several days. Many businesses cannot affordto be offline for even a few minutes.

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And, according to IT experts, just because a backup exists doesnot mean the data is pristine. In fact, backup data can becorrupted as easily as network data.

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Comprehensive business continuity solutions

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So what does a complete business continuity solution look likefor those with only a working knowledge of IT?

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Following are five factors that should be found in acomprehensive business continuity solution:

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1. Provide image-based backup of keysystems.

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Some basic backup systems copy select files to tape or othernetwork storage devices. This allows for limited retrieval of data,with some of it potentially excluded. The process of both backingup and recovering the data (when needed) is typically veryslow.

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When CMA Healthcare’s Huckaby was first hired, the businessrelied on tape backups that were time-consuming, difficult tomanage and easily corrupted.

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Although he lobbied for a better solution, it was only after amajor hardware failure to the server which stored electronicmedical records that he was able to convince ownership to make achange. The event took the system offline for three or fourdays.

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Since then, Huckaby said CMA Healthcare has entrusted its databackup and recovery to Unified Network Group, Inc., whichoffers a business continuity solution designed to restore keysystems and data within minutes regardless of the cause or point offailure.

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UNG offers more advanced image-based backups that create a copyof the operating system and all the data associated with it,including the system state and application configurations. Thebackup is saved as a single file called an image.

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The advantages of this approach are that select files or theentire server can be restored within minutes.

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2. Backups occur frequentlyto a local hardware appliance.

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Ideally, backups would be completed hourly and possibly evenmore frequently for critical real-time data. More frequent backupsare limited by the type of system. Tape backups are often set toperform this work during the night and, depending on the amount ofdata, may not even be finished by the morning.

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Image-based backup, on the other hand, can be completed muchfaster.

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“The system that UNG uses can be configured to take ‘snapshots’of our servers as frequently as every five minutes,” Huckabyexplained. “So we identified the servers that handle all of ourhealthcare information and we back them up multiple times per hour.Less critical servers are backed up once an hour, so we know thatif there is ever an issue we have a backup that is no more than anhour old that we can restore quickly.”

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3. For redundancy, locally storeddata would also be backed up in the cloud.

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When anticipating every possible scenario where the system couldbreak down, it makes sense to backup any local hardware appliancesto the cloud.

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Even less technical business owners are now at least somewhatfamiliar with the concept of the cloud. This essentially means theentire network is also backed up to remote servers locatedelsewhere in the United States. Cloud servers are extremely securewith their own redundant protections and backups.

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If the local hardware appliance fails or is destroyed in a fire,flood, earthquake or other natural disaster, the entire network canbe accessed directly from the cloud. While rare, these eventshappen more frequently than many realize.

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4. Backups are tested daily to ensure thedata is not corrupted.

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Although there are some rudimentary tools for ensuring a backupwas completed successfully and that the data was not corrupted,they are limited and often infrequent. For smaller companies, thismonitoring is often not assigned to IT, but to office managers orother staff.

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To protect against potential data corruption of the backups,some vendors are now going a step further and conducting dailytesting and verification of image-based backups. The daily reportsare sent to the client once a week to show that the backup wastested and is in good working order.

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5. Backups, whether local or in thecloud, can act as virtual servers in a pinch.

In addition to the data itself, backups areconfigured so in the event of server or other hardware failure theycan be booted up and act as a virtual server if needed. For theusers — employees or members — the virtual networkfunctions and acts exactly like the original server.

Once the hardware is repaired or replaced, tested and backonline, all of the data (including everything changed or addedduring the downtime) is copied to it and the switch is made back tothe actual server.

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“Now if the server dies, the data backup system we have can boota virtual server and be up in just a couple minutes,” Campbellsaid. “This makes the system we have infinitely easier to use. Itis effortless to recover a file and … the entire system if neededas well.”

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Cost of network recovery inminutes.

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As with any expense, businesses are rightfully concerned withthe cost of a more comprehensive backup and recovery system.

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Some providers are moving toward a fixed monthly fee model forbusiness continuity solutions based on the amount of data involved.The flat rate includes all software, hardware appliances, cloudstorage, monitoring, and even support and assistance when an eventoccurs.

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This stands in contrast to IT support billed by the hour alongwith additional fees to purchase or lease hardware appliances forcloud storage. These fees add up and can even spike in the event ofsignificant data loss or a network crash.

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According to Huckaby, businesses should think of a comprehensivebusiness continuity solution like insurance.

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“Nobody likes paying for insurance, but they are sure glad theypay for it when they need to use it,” he said.