Five steps to take for pretty good DL/DR protection

I see a lot of small businesses unprepared for data loss prevention and disaster recovery. Implementing a DLP/BDR plan can be a daunting task if you start searching for solutions via Google both in terms of scope and finances as well. This doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. I’m not saying that BDR and DLP solutions found on the Internet aren’t a good option for small business…far from it. The backup disaster recovery and data loss prevention fields are huge saturated industries with lots of great players which are probably going to offer better protection that what I’m proposing. That said, these solutions can be very costly to implement and cost if often the first hurdle in determining whether a small business implements a BDR/DLP plan or not. This video is designed to showcase that it is possible to design a pretty good BDR/DLP plan without investing a lot of money up front.

If you have questions or comments, let me know in the comments section for this article or via YouTube.

Slides:

Goal: Data loss prevention on a budget using existing and low cost technologies to reduce the risk of data loss involved with systems failure.

1. Centralized storage of data + good computer Use policy
Benefits:
Single system to backup
Administrative control over data

2. Clear organization of data and access rights to that data
Benefits:
Easily understood and documented file system permissions
Optionally delegated control

3. Volume shadow copy on the server (and workstations – optional)
Benefits:
Self service recovery of files and folders

4. Server backup and recovery
Benefits:
If your servers disk array dies, you won’t have to start over

5. Offsite replication or rotation of data sets
Benefits:
If a disaster destroys your business, you’ll be able to access important data