Downtime is one of the largest threats a business can face, so it makes sense to reduce downtime, therefore protecting your business from disaster.

After a tough 2020 for many, downtime remains a persistent enemy for both small to medium-sized businesses as well as enterprise-level corporate giants: put simply, if you’re a business, downtime can have a devastating impact on your company.

But what is downtime and how can it be reduced? Neuways is the expert in supplying businesses with multi-layered Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) plans, that will help your organisation remain operational. Let us navigate you through the dangers of downtime…

Downtime: What is it?

Downtime is a time period that a business is unable to operate within. It is usually caused by an event, such as a cyber attack, fire or flood in a workplace or a server failure. Think for a moment, if your business was unable to open and service customers, how would you survive that loss of trade?

In 2020, according to our BCDR partners Datto, the average cost of downtime surged by a huge 94% year-on-year, from £105,867 in 2019 to £205,878 last year. These sums of money are large enough for a business of any size to sit up and take notice. This led to Business Continuity being ranked as the number one solution to combat attacks of any kind on a business – 91% of 1,000 MSPs surveyed said clients with BCDR products in place were less likely to experience downtime from ransomware, in particular.

How you can reduce downtime?

To reduce downtime, businesses need a Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery plan that ensures they are fully protected. Any plan must regularly ensure company data is being backed up to three different locations:

  • On-device: your data is backed up on the device it came from, very localised backing up of data.
  • Local backup appliance: usually backed up on a sever housed in a business’ main office. Can store large quantities of backed up company data.
  • The Cloud: stored off-site, data is backed up securely and regularly. Can be used by any, authorised company account from any location.

The Power of 3, as it is known, ensures that data is managed correctly and can be recovered swiftly in the event of a disaster that stops staff from using the company’s files and systems. For example, if an office suffered a fire, the business could remain operational through using the data backed up to a secure, off-site location.

Disaster Recovery as a Service, (DRaaS) from Neuways, runs alongside your existing IT support provision. The service will assess your existing backup solution and assess if it meets your business’s requirements adequately. It will also regularly tests data that has been backed up, ensuring it is operational if needed, as well as a promise to have users back online within an hour. Having BCDR specialists dedicated to looking after your business’ data could prove to be the difference between little to no downtime and a few days or even weeks of zero operations – if your server fails, it can take an average of 2-4 weeks to fix or implement a replacement!

By investing in a Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery solution and plan, a business is placing stock in its future. Without planning and preparing for the worst, a business cannot hope to survive the next disaster.

Is your business’s strategy to deal with downtime still viable? Does it still meet your business’s needs?

Not sure…talk to Neuways today!

Get in touch with Neuways and reduce downtime with the help of our experts:

01283 753333 or email hello@neuways.com today!