Are you prepared to protect your data and important documents? This article is designed to help you create a disaster recovery plan, courtesy of an Arizona auction house that has first hand experience. Specifics may vary from person to person; however, the following information includes helpful and important guidelines from which everyone can benefit.
Recently our Arizona auction house was hit by a microburst storm, which isn\'t necessarily uncommon in our area, especially during the monsoon season. A microburst is when a dust storm and a thunderstorm meet and create tornado like conditions. The storm blew out our plate glass windows, which are 8ft by 8ft and filled our offices with water. Water was coming in so quickly that computers were pulled out as quickly as possible to prevent damage.
Even though we sustained a tremendous amount of physical damage to our building and to many of our computers, we were fortunate that no one was injured in the storm. It took over a week to get our Arizona auction house back up and running but luckily we had a computer back-up system that recovered our lost information.
The point of this story is not to tell you about Arizona\'s often unpredictable weather; it is to share with you the importance of data backup and paper backup. I always have recognized the importance of backing up computers and keeping copies of back-ups offsite from our auction facility. This was really more in the event of a computer crash than any other possible catastrophe occurring.
Having a safe copy of your data and documents is crucial. It doesn\'t matter if you\'re a small business, a large corporation or a home computer user. We have insurance for our consignor\'s goods so I was never concerned about product replacement, however, if you don\'t have insurance, you should look into it. We also had insurance on all of our office equipment as well so I thought we were in good shape. What I had never done was put together a disaster recovery plan.
A disaster recovery plan includes the following:
1. Off-site paper copies of all contracts, corporate papers and insurance papers.
2. Off-site location of some business checks and deposit slips.
3. Emergency contact telephone numbers for key employees and repair personnel, which have been distributed to all key personnel.
4. Plan for securing an auction site while under repair.
5. Back-up of all computer systems including copies of operating systems, manuals and software applications.
6. List of duties and responsibilities for each staff member in the event of a disaster including a backup person for each job task in the event that the staff member is unavailable.
The key to making a disaster recovery system work is to constantly update each step of the system on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis. Not only does this prepare your company for a disaster it gives you the peace of mind that you can quickly recover and serve your clients well. Good luck and stay safe.
Author Resource:-
Deb Weidenhamer is President of Auction Systems, the Southwest\'s most active auction and appraisal company. Check out our website for our Arizona auction house schedule or call 800-801-8880 for more information.
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