Hard-drives, power sources, operating systems, backup drives, they all will fail. Be it a mechanical error, virus infection , malicious actor, all the way to completely automated and large scale hacks – every system goes down! Otherwise it would reach the statistically near impossible 100% up-time mark.

Knowing this, thorough planning is a must. This area of IT is called “continuity” planning. Having measures in place that ensure that business can continue as usual as quickly as possible after a catastrophic IT event that will certainly hit every business at some point. Always be aware that the statistical chance that nothing will ever happen is near 0.

Ed Eisenstein, former Chief Information Officer of Nassau county shares his top continuity tips. Today Ed is founder of a New York based Cybersecurity and IT services firm, serving hundreds of businesses in different verticals. As homeland security instructor and former liaison officer for the FBI his insights are a great guideline.

Here are his top 5 tips:

1. Identify all critical or vital business components. This includes location, power, people, data systems, banking, etc. (he uses checklists for his clients)

2. Identify critical information and contacts. This includes easily accessible emergency contact information as well as critical banking and online system access information

3. Create a written action plan. A business continuity plan and disaster recovery effort that is realistic and doable and becomes part of the company culture that everyone is aware of.

4. Set realistic recovery objectives. What is needed and in what timeline for the business to continue and ultimately not fail due to a disaster situation.

5. Test the plan and keep it up to date. A realistic continuity plan is based on keeping the information and workflow up to date. The best course of action is to keep it as current as possible or at least make it an annual review process.

If you are interested in learning about those strategies and how to implement them, you can reach Ed Eisenstein at https://www.unatechnical.com/