Law Firm Backup Vs. Disaster Recovery

Often times when we are asked to give pricing on a backup or disaster recovery solution the client really does not know what they are asking for. They may know what a backup is but they are often wrong when they try to explain what they think a disaster recovery solution is. The problem is that the words, “Disaster Recovery” are buzz words and if your outside the IT industry, you may have an idea what it means, but I’d like to give you a full picture so you know what you are asking for.

Backup

This is simply a copy of your firm’s files and data that is stored separately from the original. We prefer offsite backup because it is automatic and trouble free. There is a monthly charge for this depending on the amount of data you wish to backup. If your server crashes, while it would take some time to rebuild your server, your data would be safe and sound. The only downtime you would face would be the time it would take for your server to be setup and your data to be downloaded and installed. A backup would not help you in case of a disaster due to the downtime association with the rebuild which could take days. This is why firms who cannot afford downtime look toward disaster recovery solutions.

Disaster Recovery

Disaster recovery encompasses processes, policies and procedures for the preparation and continuation of your firm’s technology infrastructure uptime during a disaster or catastrophe which intern causes technology infrastructure downtime. It’s basically a plan to keep you up and running in times of utility failure, fire, theft or any other problem your firm may face. A plan that keeps you up and running 24/7 with virtually no downtime is not cheap, so if you ever ask an IT company to give you a disaster recovery solution, expect a large figure that may be monthly. The best thing you can do is offload your in-house servers to the cloud. If you have an exchange server, move to a hosted exchange solution. It will never go down and it’s cheap at $8/user/month. If you have a data or SQL server you need to be performing image backups and either keep them onsite, or onsite and offsite. It also matters if your servers are virtualized. There are most pieces of software out there that support virtualized servers than non-virtualized. A virtualized setup will benefit your firm in terms of disaster recovery. Keep in mind that if you store your data offsite your most likely going to have a monthly charge. If you keep in onsite and rotate the tapes or drives, the setup and software is a one time fee unless the software requires maintenance which is a yearly charge. We like cloud solutions, but we understand that for larger firms a cloud solution would be way too much. A combination offsite backup, server image is the perfect most cost effective solution for disaster recovery. Depending on the solution, restoration could even be deployed remotely by your IT provider.

If you want more information about our disaster recovery solutions please contact us @ 800-554-4166.