Disaster recovery (DR) is an essential activity necessary to protect the viability of modern information technology (IT) environments. Organizations need to have verifiable plans for addressing sudden outages so they can quickly restore and maintain access to business-critical systems. Failure to conduct proper disaster recovery planning and testing puts a company at significant and unnecessary risk.

As another hurricane season becomes a harrowing memory, the specter of blizzards and ice storms begin to appear just over the horizon. Power outages can happen at the most inopportune time, and the incidence of ransomware attacks continues to increase at an alarming rate. There is an ever-present potential for an event that could be classified as a disaster impacting your business’s IT infrastructure. If your organization is not prepared, there can be long-lasting ramifications that affect your business in multiple ways.

Individuals responsible for the continued operation of an organization’s computer systems are challenged by extreme weather events. Some potential issues are more predictable than others. Data centers located in areas that are prone to hurricanes can expect to be impacted by the storms on a fairly regular basis. The increased proliferation of extremely strong and large hurricanes has made it more important than ever to have plans in place that maintain business operations when disaster strikes.

The cloud has made advanced computing capabilities available to businesses of any size. Companies no longer need to supply their own computing platforms as they can employ the extensive resources of their chosen cloud provider. The range of cloud offerings allows small organizations to compete with their larger rivals on a more evenly constructed playing field. The cloud enables any enterprise to take advantage of techniques that may have previously been beyond the scope of their capabilities or budgets.