There are a handful of things businesses should be doing to protect their virtual information from disappearing. Some have put these measures into place, but many have not, and creating a disaster-recovery plan — or more importantly, a disaster-avoidance plan— is what could save a company from losing everything.

Photographer Bob Zemba doesn’t have to think too hard to come up with an example of when a disaster-prevention plan might come in handy.

The owner and principal photographer of Robert Charles Photography in East Longmeadow said that one of the most integral aspects of his business is wedding photography, and without the necessary safeguards in place, one stroke of bad luck could translate into thousands of dollars in lost business, not to mention the loss of countless irreplaceable moments that can never be captured again.

“One of the cool things about the photographic world is that there is an emotional component to photos that everyone relates to,” he said, “and that illustrates the importance and the human aspect of our business data better than anything else.”

That importance, and the possibility of facing a disaster – be it fire, flood, theft, vandalism, or anything else that could jeopardize the safety of Zemba’s many files – is why the studio has an extensive disaster avoidance plan in place with regard to digital and virtual files.

“We have a fairly robust system,” said Zemba. “When we photograph a wedding day, we bring twice as many CF (memory) cards as needed, 200% the battery power we think we need, twice as many flashes … it’s all built-in redundancy to focus on avoidance, not recovery – and once we’ve captured those images, the first thing we do is back everything up on static media.”

That redundancy – a word used often in the field of disaster prevention – doesn’t stop there. Zemba said from that media back-up, information then goes onto the company’s server, equipped with overlapping power supplies.

“The second that they’re on the server, we also burn data onto DVDs,” said Zemba, “which go into fire safes in the backroom. Artwork and presentation files all go through an additional burn.”

Once a client has made a purchase, those images also go to off-site storage, and Zemba said that currently, he’s looking into securing an off-site server that can handle more than a terabyte of storage, necessary for businesses with vast amounts of data.

And in actuality, that notion of redundancy and the investment in software and equipment that creates a safety net for Robert Charles Photography’s critical data is exactly what is recommended for all businesses in various industries.

However, disaster prevention and recovery plans are only now moving to the forefront, and for those who have yet to employ a few necessary safety measures, the Big Day could be right around the corner – in the absolute worst sense of the word.

An Ounce of Prevention

In the current business climate, ‘disaster recovery’ refers to the plan in place in a given business that will provide a course of action to restore essential data to the workplace after a loss has occurred.

While many companies have yet to put such contingency plans in place, the IT industry has taken strides of late in the area of information protection, and is now moving toward products and services geared toward prevention rather than recovery.

According to Ed Watson and David Alger, co-owners of Mobius Works in Westfield, putting these plans in place requires an investment on the part of the business owner, but in a corporate world that is becoming increasingly technology-driven and paperless, the investment is becoming increasingly necessary.

“The field of disaster recovery, or rather disaster avoidance, has changed a lot in the last few years,” said Watson, noting that many business owners are still unsure how to answer the many questions regarding loss of electronic information, or even which questions to ask. “I’d say eight out of 10 of our clients are under-protected, or moreover think they’re protected, but are actually very vulnerable. And what you don’t know in this case can be devastating to a business.”

Watson said the unknowns add weight to the idea of investing in prevention, as does the complexity and the cost of recovering lost data.

“It could cost a business upwards of $10,000 just to have a professional take a shot in the dark,” he said, “with no promise or guarantee that the information will ever be recovered.”

Watson and Alger explained that there are a few basic steps that all companies should take in order to protect their files, particularly those that are essential to regular operations and those that contain sensitive information.

First, they say, know where the data is. Many businesses have important information stored in several different locations throughout a computer system, a server, or multiple servers, and locating all of that information and centralizing it in just a few locations is key to knowing what you have, and what could be lost.

“A lot of employees store their own work in individual files, or on their own C drives,” said Alger. “That’s where people will run into problems first, especially if the computers are getting old.”

Step two, he added, is to ensure that all of that data is backed up, and further that regularly occurring back-ups are monitored and verified.

“Companies need to get at least one piece of back-up software immediately, one that copies data to removeable media,” Alger said.

And the third step is that which Watson said too few companies are taking; get the backed-up information out of the building.

Although virtual storage systems for data suggest that the physical move of information from one locale to another is no longer necessary, Watson said removing copies of important files from the physical place of business could be the most imperative aspect of any disaster-avoidance plan, and the difference between making the recovery of that information a simple process or a distant dream.

Fire, vandalism, flood, or even a good-sized windstorm can damage electronic data as much as they can a filing cabinet, and while viruses are becoming less a threat as computer and software manufacturers create blocks to combat them, human nature and Mother Nature are both contingencies that will never go away.

“If a fire happens at a business and files are not backed up in a safe, secure location, all of that information could be gone,” Watson said. “The great thing now, though, is even if a building burns to the ground, as long as the company’s files have been backed up elsewhere, we can get you up and running again, even if it’s in a back room in your house.”

A Product, A Cure?

In keeping with that trend toward prevention, Mobius Works has created ‘backup ware’ called Janus, which essentially provides an online back-up service for valuable data. Through an Internet-based, automated program, Janus automatically culls information from a company’s server daily, encrypts the data, and sends it to two storage facilities in New Jersey and Toronto, which are further protected with 24/7 monitoring, biometric access controls, backup generators, and multiple connections to the Internet. The stored information is also HIPAA-compliant.

So-called hosted applications like Janus are the direction in which recovery and prevention interventions are moving, said Watson, as they are more cost-effective and practical, especially for small businesses that may not have the means to create redundancy in-house.

“In the next 10 years, we will see more hosted applications,” he said. “No company wants to buy 20 computers for 10 employees.”

Further, prevention plans are being put into place even earlier in the information protection process than the back-up of data. David Weiss, president and CEO of Dataprobe Inc. based in Allendale, N.J., explained that his company has had some recent success in the area of ‘switching solutions,’ which guard against the loss or delay of data by heading the problem off at the first sign of trouble.

Products like the K-16 switch, now in use in Japan’s Narita Airport, allow for the back-up and transfer of communication from line to line with minimal interruption in service. The K-16 system can automatically detect potential failures, and can be managed remotely.

The principle is largely the same behind another Dataprobe offering, iBoot, which at about $300 is an accessible monitoring device for small businesses that can turn on, off, or reboot a server, again remotely from a laptop and Web browser. Weiss said that, while disaster prevention products are moving in a proactive direction that anticipates problems rather than fixing them, they offer a mode of protection that is not new, creating multiple channels with which to transfer data, and in turn make copies of that data.

“As technology changes, the modalities change and what needs to be protected will change – but the fundamentals never really change,” he said. “Even when two monks were scribbling a copy of a book, that redundancy was there, only now what we’re looking at is pushing the technology forward so more and more people can make use of it.

“No matter how rock-solid the system is, something will go wrong eventually,” he added. “That’s why we do a lot of work in the air traffic industry. But avoidance is the first step; in other words, keeping a system running, uninterrupted, as much as possible.”

Watson added that to achieve that uninterrupted service as often as possible, an outsourced IT partner is sometimes necessary for a business. However, so is knowledge of the prevention plan and the company’s computer and storage systems on the whole.

“One person who is charged with diligently checking this stuff can go a long, long way,” he said. “And that can be a regular user who knows what’s going on. They need to look at the logs of information that has been backed-up everyday, and know how to read those logs, and understand how data can be lost.

“It can be intimidating,” said Watson, “but it comes down to the safety of data and the productivity of the company. The one question every business owner should ask themselves is ‘can my company continue if I have a massive data loss?’ and then, ‘if so, for how long?’”

A Marriage of Ideas

Zemba agreed that the process can be confusing, but said the peace of mind he gained after his studio instituted a specific disaster-avoidance plan that included the installation of new hardware and software has been worth the time and cost.

“It was a gigantic step forward for us to go from ‘recovery mode’ to ‘avoidance mode,’” he said, “But it’s not just about the security of the system. It’s also absolutely critical to not being distracted by consistent minor IT issues that eat into efficiency and productivity.

“We’re not a perfect shop,” he cautioned. “There’s plenty of room for improvement, and we’re always looking at areas in which we can get better. But I made it part of the business model so I can say with confidence that we take our disaster avoidance strategy very seriously, and that it is an aggressive strategy.”

It also allows Zemba to be a photographer, not an IT professional, a result that keeps him focused on his client’s Big Day, not the impending threat of his own.

Jaclyn Stevenson can be reached at stevenson@businesswest.com