How Important is Your Data?

In the wake of Katrina, a number of businesses called to order phone lines for new offices. The move was the result of severe flooding in the offices that they had before Hurricane Katrina struck the New Orleans area. Flooding and the resulting water damage is something every business should think about (and determine if they have insurance coverage for).

The shock came a week later when these same business owners – doctors, lawyers, accountants – had to cancel phone line orders because they could not open their offices. Client files, invoicing, scheduling were all destroyed. How important is your data?

Effectively this meant that they had No Business. They had to piece everything together from scratch.

These were paper files. No backups. No electronic copies. Even the computer files were not backed up.

We live in a Digital Age. Your photos, music, video, notes, messages, reminders, schedule is all digital. On your phone – which when you lose it or it breaks – all your stuff is gone. On your laptop or computer, when that hard drive fails or a virus cripples your machine, all digital information, memories, data are gone.

The Cloud is all about high availability of your data. Access your data wherever you are, on whatever device is Internet connected.

Data storage and back-up are cloud offerings for peace of mind. Not only should you back up all your computer files regularly, you should back them up to a remote site. Having a removable hard drive as backup is smart. Keeping that removable hard drive at your office overnight is not, since flood or fire will damage the original data and the backup copy.

In addition, sync your smartphones regularly, if for no other reason than the contact list. How often have you seen a status update from a friend asking for phone numbers because she lost her phone or it dies?

Amazingly, in the aftermath of both 9/11 and Katrina, many businesses do not perform any business continuity or disaster recovery planning at all. The prevailing thought is that it won’t happen to me. Honestly, in this digital age, your data is the primary asset of your business. Protect it.

Learn more about iM1 at www.iM1.com.