Imagine the effect on your business. The IT system fails and everything is lost. Every single document on your network has seemingly gone up in a proverbial puff of smoke and the company is left with nothing – no records of orders, contracts, invoices, vital contacts, staff details, and payroll. Even the emails have simply vanished.

Your IT infrastructure forms the very core of most businesses I this day and age and this does not only apply to multi-national corporations but even the local home office user as well. And if you have not taken sufficient steps to cope with potential data losses then the reality is you could be putting the existence of your business at peril.

Any IT solution should not be restricted to the basics like computer repair, network and computer support , but should also take into account business continuity planning.

Danger lurks around many corners ranging from mechanical and electronic failures, human error, to the more sinister employee sabotage and data theft. Even more unpredictable disasters can occur. Many businesses are still reeling from the devastating floods of 2007 – the type of Act of God that can hit any unprotected business.

In recent years companies with foresight have invested in tape back-up systems, where all important data has been copied to tape, usually each night. But even some of those have fallen victim to theft, loss or tape failure. Fortunately technology has moved on and companies wishing to ensure the best possible protection have taken advantage of IT specialists offering the ultimate solution – offsite data back-up to remote, highly secure servers.

This then leads to the need for far more expensive data recovery or raid data recovery as a method of hopefully retrieving vital data.

Many companies are now investing in remote data backup models as part of their business continuity strategy as these have a number of significant advantages.

For example, despite being stored remotely, data can be restored in the workplace extremely easily by logging into the servers. Data is digitally encrypted so that it can be accessed by no one other than the company to whom it belongs. “It is also a very cost effective method compared to tape systems which are less reliable and constantly need replacing.”

An effective business continuity plan as long as it has been implemented can be the difference between the survival or failure of a business going forward, so to fully understand the implications of a data loss emergency ask yourself some very serious questions: could your business carry on if you lost all of your customer records or what would be the impact on our business if we lost all our computer aided design data.

And of course on a final note, once you have implemented a business continuity plan make sure you test it to make sure the plan is robust in a real environment.