Companies must customize data backup, recovery for specific needs

Data backup solutions and data recovery strategies are far from one-size-fits-all processes. According to a recent TechTarget report, individual companies must take it upon themselves to ensure the data protection tools they have implemented are properly equipped to safeguard information in the event of an IT disaster.

TechTarget contributor Paul Kirvan is a business continuity management consultant with more than 20 years of experience in the industry. He devised a checklist that all organizations can follow to ensure their backup and recovery strategies fall in line with the rest of their records management program.

Here are some of the areas Kirvan covered.

1. Know the organization

Backup and recovery strategies are the most effective when data storage administrators have a full working knowledge of the organization, the report said. This will include knowing the types of data stored, where it resides and the whether or not it should be tagged as either mission critical or sensitive.

2. Take a look at the past

Researching past IT disasters will give the company a better idea of what it should be preparing for. As the saying goes, history repeats itself. Learning from previous mistakes means that the next backup and recovery strategies won't fall victim to the same vulnerabilities as previous initiatives, Kirvan stated.

3. Meet with various departments

Just as the needs of various companies are different, the same can be said of the departments within a single organization. Depending on the data they produce, store and require to complete their daily tasks, departments are unlikely to have the same needs when it comes to backup and recovery. Kirvan said meeting each one will determine what they want to get out of a new strategy.

4. Rank departmental needs

Once information is gathered from individual departments, the company will know which need to get back up and running as soon as possible. As such, these areas of the organization will take precedence when it comes to restoring lost data.

The risks to enterprise data have become too great to ignore, according to experts. That's why it's now necessary for every organization to devise a plan that will ensure their data is both protected and easily restored in the shortest amount of time possible.

According to the recently released Business Data Loss Survey, more than half of 250 companies polled said they have lost data this year.