The services of a data recovery specialist is undoubtedly
something you desperately need when you have a need to have data
hard drive recovery. However, it is not usually necessary or cost-effective
to have a data recovery specialist on staff, unless of course
they serve multiple roles because data recovery tasks are
necessary only in the event of a catastrophe or hardware failure.
If you have a staff member that has data recovery expertise and
could serve as a data recovery specialist when needed of course
that is beneficial but not necessarily a necessity. Outsourcing
to a data recovery specialist is usually the best and most
effective way to salvage your data if data recovery services are
needed.
It is important; however, to have a well thought out data
recovery plan when you have a business such as an internet
business that is highly dependent on electronic data for its
operation. In order for the services of a data recovery
specialist to be beneficial or even possible, regular backups of
data must be made and stored in a safe location so that in the
event of a catastrophe – a natural disaster or a fire – access to
data for the purpose of restoration is possible.
Without backups, a data recovery specialist can sometimes
retrieve and restore data from devices such as computer hard
drives, mainframe computers, tape backups or similar technology
even if there are no backups to be used for restoration. However,
without backups that are kept safe by being stored in a remote
location, there is always potential that your data will be lost
forever and that a data recovery specialist won’t do you a bit of
good. When you lose data, your service to your customers declines
and the very existence of your business as you know it is
threatened.
A good data recovery plan for an internet business should
certainly identify a data recovery specialist that is easily
accessible in the event of an emergency that requires the
services of a data recovery specialist. It should also contain
contact information for the data recovery specialist who
hopefully is available twenty-four hours a day even on weekends
and holidays to ensure that customer service is not jeopardized
by extensive downtime.
The data recovery plan should be updated frequently to make sure
that the data recovery specialist specified by the plan is active
and available. It is a good idea to list more than one data
recovery specialist whose credentials have been approved in case,
for some reason, the preferred data recovery specialist cannot be
reached when needed.
In addition to identifying a data recovery specialist and an
alternative data recovery specialist, a data recovery plan should
contain procedures for day to day operations to ensure that PCs
and databases are backed up regularly.
The importance of backups to data recovery is often recognized,
but sometimes the need for keeping backups stored in a safe,
remote location is overlooked. On site backups are fine if the
problem that creates the need for a data recovery specialist is
related to hardware failure, but other events can actually damage
the backups as well as the primary storage devices for your data.