In business, it is very likely that times will come when there would be some form of trouble that would result in a loss of data by companies. A typical example is what happened during the September 11, attack on the world trade center where tons of documents were irretrievably lost. While some companies were smart enough to back some of their crucial data up, others basically lost everything. Imagine a situation where you lose the contract form for a business contract that you really want to any form of mishap. That's how bad it can get.

Any smart business owner should know that while disasters may not be envisaged, it can happen. Disasters do not necessarily have to be in the extremes such as floods, earthquakes and harsh weather conditions such as whirlwinds or cyclones, it could be just internal fires in the building or mistaken shredding important documents. As a result of the potential harm loss of data can cause, it is very worse to get a disaster recovery solution plan in place. This will ensure that even if all physical documents or data are lost, their soft copies can be retrieved from paces where they are stores.

To effectively plan a disaster recovery plan, certain steps need to be taken. These are:

1. Make an inventory of all potential risks: It is crucial for the IT department of a company to make a list of all potential causes of data losses and the possible solutions. Also included in this should be a list of risks that the company can afford to tale or data that may not harm the company very much of it is lost and those that it cannot with all the preventive measures and damage control measures. If the business is a small company just starting up, the best bet is to hire a team of IT experts to make a quick inventory and present the management with their conclusions.

2. Make a Rating for all of these potential dangers: This is very important in enabling a company decide what is important and what isn't. A good example of this is a web hosting company with servers locate on site. An assessment of the effects of earthquake as against power outage is likely to show that the earthquake will be ranked fairly low compared to the power outage. So, the rating for each company would be customized to that company as each has its own unique needs and problems.

3. Develop the Disaster Recovery plan: This includes taking note of the time it would take for the recovery plan to be executed and the length of time a company can afford to remain out of reach before losing its customers. For example, a web hosting company that goes offline for just 24 hrs is likely to lose most of its clients to its competition.

4. Test Your Solution: After installing or putting the solutions in place, test the services. But ensure that your clients know about it so they don't get worried.