No business is safe from the threat of disaster, but while it is impossible to avoid circumstances that are beyond your control, you can minimise their impact by devising contingency measures.
Disaster recovery planning is vital for firms that value resilience and appreciate that it is better to spend a little money now rather than face a major outlay further down the line at some unexpected and inconvenient time.
Resilience in the IT department is particularly important, because if you are able to keep mission-critical systems up and running, it may be possible to get back to normal quickly, thus limiting costly downtime.
Of course, if you are reliant on internal systems for the hosting of IT services, all of your eggs are effectively in one basket. Should disaster befall your main office, the likelihood is that at least some disruption will occur that prevents you from accessing the apps and data that could give your company a better chance of survival.
One way to ensure that your disaster recovery planning is more thorough and flexible is to invest in a colocation hosting solution, which will not leave your business exposed to the brunt of a disaster. But what are the benefits of colocation hosting for disaster recovery and why might your business want to choose this type of set-up?
Remote = Resilient
With colocation hosting, you will be effectively hedging your bets and thus dramatically increasing the chances of avoiding disaster, or at least weathering a literal or metaphorical storm.
Your server equipment will be protected in a data centre built with the express purpose of ensuring the physical integrity of the hardware it contains. Should something go wrong at your base of operations, whether environmental or otherwise, your hosted services will remain active and available from any device with an internet connection.
This will mean that you can operate from a separate site or even use home working in order to keep things ticking over until repairs have been made and problems resolved.
Uptime is King
A colocation hosting solution will not only take into account the physical integrity of your hardware, but also make sure that outages and downtime are as rare as possible.
This is made possible through strong infrastructural elements, with redundant hardware elements and back-up power supplies in place to keep data centres operational even if the odds are against them. Depending on the data centre in question, you may be able to rely on close to 100% uptime come rain, shine or blackout.
Even if systems are unavailable for a relatively brief period, outages can be very expensive for businesses, so using colocation hosting provides some peace of mind.
In fact, while you may find that colocation hosting might seem like a more expensive alternative to running everything in house, you are actually getting a lot more value for money when you look at it from the point of view of disaster recovery.
A data centre can give you access to the kind of protective measures that cannot be realistically implemented or integrated on a smaller scale, which means you can use your own sever hardware and retain control of tasks such as upgrades and maintenance while enjoying the benefits of a much larger, more durable infrastructure.
Colocation hosting is not a one trick pony and there are plenty of other advantages that you should consider when considering adoption. However, for a business that is conscientious about disaster recovery and continuity, it definitely stands out as worthy of investment when compared to the less sturdy systems that might typically be in place.
This article is published in association with Daisy Group plc, a uk provider of colocation hosting to businesses.
Colocation Hosting For Disaster Recovery
