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IT services HoustonIT services providers in Houston can help your business achieve proper business continuity key performance indicators (KPIs) through consultation and service provision. A combination of both these strategies will often produce the most secure solution.

Be Strategic

In order to determine what will best safeguard your business, you need to know where to center your business continuity framework. You might consider these KPIs:

  • Recovery Point Objective (RPO)
  • Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

 

RPO is the time it takes to get a specific application back online once a disaster has occurred. Meanwhile, RTO refers to the total time necessary for the reboot of your network after a substantial crash. You should run tests to see what the numbers are. How close are you to your objective in either scenario, and are you able to steadily get those numbers down? Figuring this out will help you know whether your business continuity solution has been adequately designed.

Once you’ve got your KPIs figured out, your next step is going to involve properly integrating your solution. Several steps this direction include:

  • Assigning RPOs and RTOs by application priority
  • Combining both on-premises and cloud solutions
  • Instituting optimization and monitoring support

Application Priority

IT services providers in Houston can help you determine which applications should have priority over others in a total crash scenario. RTO is going to, in many cases, have to launch some applications sequentially. You’ve got to know what’s most important to reboot first, otherwise when the crash comes you’ll be operating out of a panic and could incidentally damage you network, which certainly is no good for business continuity. So, set up RPO and RTO not just to recover malfunctioning apps and networks, but to also do so in proper sequence.

Redundancies: Multiple Backup Solutions

You want as many sources of backed up data as you can acquire. Cloud backups that continuously backup your data are strategically valuable. Additionally, it makes sense to have a separate off-site backup solution in the event something happens to your cloud storage option, and an on-site backup in case either of the other two systems is compromised. You might even keep a hard drive updated with the most important data at regular intervals at your home property. The scope of your redundant backup solutions will depend on your budget. It’s generally a minority of businesses that can afford truly comprehensive redundancy solutions; so, perhaps you’ll start with on-site backups and a cloud solution. An MSP can help you determine what’s most affordable and realistic.

Optimization and Monitoring Support

Even if you can only acquire one backup solution, regular optimization of primary and secondary systems, as well as the most continuous monitoring you can source, can both prevent network crashes and facilitate more expedient, reliable business continuity.

Secure Business Continuity

IT services in Houston through ICS can cost-effectively maintain the security of your network. Contact us to help advise you on the steps you should take in establishing a business continuity solution, as well as to attain services that can be a very real help when an unexpected disaster arises.