CONTACT US
info@filevaultusa.com
839 Exchange Street
Charlotte, NC 28208
704.392.6269
704.395.2699

MAP

©2006 FileVault USA
Privacy Policy

Time to Update your Plans

A fire next door to your business creates a heat wave that crashes your computer servers. These servers hold all of your business's vital records: personnel information, client and vendor data and contracts. What are the chances that your business could recover from such a disaster? Only one in 93.

Disasters destroying vital records drastically decrease the probability that a business will survive the following five years. These disasters are not restricted to fires and floods. A disaster can be as mundane as a hot cup of coffee spilled on a computer, air conditioners breaking down causing computer and server failures, and even a disgruntled employee purposefully causing harm or vandalism.

While it is nearly impossible to anticipate every possible disaster scenario that may affect your business, there are steps you can take to protect your vital records and lessen the damage caused to your business.

Assessing threats and risks

Vital records protection should be a part of every business' disaster recovery plan risk assessment. By assessing the risks facing your business, you can better plan for potential disaster scenarios that your business may face. This assessment should include a physical site survey and records risk assessment. A physical site survey will examine the conditions of where and how your records are stored and any risks associated with those conditions. A records risk assessment will identify your company's current security and control measures and make recommendations to protect your records against those potential threats. This analysis will also examine the risk of damage to your records and the likely consequences if records were destroyed.
In conducting these assessments, we discovered instances where a rat made a nest in personnel records, found leaking pipes hanging over a file cabinet holding articles of incorporation, and noted potential threats of vandalism by a disgruntled employee deleting the customer database.

Identifying your vital records

Vital records are records which your business requires in order to function. These records support critical business processes, and their loss would cause significant damage, often resulting in organizational collapse. Surprisingly, few records fall into this category. Less than 10 percent of most business' records are actually vital records. Invoices from vendors, for example, are not vital to your business. If an invoice to be paid were lost, you would simply get another copy from your vendor.
Review the following questions to help separate vital records from other business records:

• What records are absolutely necessary to resume operations?
• What records are necessary to protect assets, protect the legal and financial status of the organization, and preserve rights and obligations of employees, customers, stockholders and citizens?
• Are there other sources - inside or outside the organization - from which the records can be retrieved?
• Does the necessary information reside in more than one medium?"

Protecting your records

Protecting your vital records could be as simple as producing copies and storing them in a secure location off-site. Paper records are best protected by storage in an off-site, fire-protected records center. Electronic records are generally protected by storing backup tapes off-site in a secure, climate-controlled vault. Some companies are also using data replication and e-vaulting to keep copies in a secure, off-site location. Electronic protection methods are some of the most secure ways to ensure your information is not only protected, but also readily available when your business needs the records following a disaster. No matter which method you choose, it is important to test safeguards to ensure they are functioning properly.

A local technology company thought it properly protected their vital records by backing up its records to tape. A series of hard-drive failures destroyed the data, requiring the company to attempt to restore its system from those tapes. Unfortunately, the data on the tapes was unusable. The company sent the computer equipment to a specialist to recover as much data as possible - at a cost of more than $100,000, not including the productivity lost and disrupted customer service during its down time.

A disaster recovery plan is not a project - it is a process, and one that must be continuously tested, updated and tested again. Backup tapes fail, fireproof safes offer limited protection at best and sending the backup tapes home with an employee is no protection at all. Constant attention is needed to ensure that the protections in place for your records will function properly when they are needed most.