Disaster Recovery: Keeping Your Business Safe

Disaster Recovery is a necessity for companies that want to maintain the integrity of their data and the continuity of their business in the event of unforeseen events such as natural disasters, cyber-attacks or technical failures that can occur at any time.

To help you understand more about this topic and Ascenty’s capabilities in this area, we presented the key concepts and spoke with our Executive Services Manager, Rodrigo Radaieski, who has more than 20 years of experience in the Internet and data center markets.

Here is everything you need to know about this solution.

What is Disaster Recovery?

Disaster recovery is the strategy that keeps an organization up and running when the unexpected happens. Whether it is a cyber attack, power outage, or even a weather disaster, the goal is to ensure that critical systems and data are protected and available.

A well-structured plan can help minimize downtime, avoid financial loss, and lessen the impact of critical situations. This includes backup methods, redundant environments, and tools to quickly restore operations.

The Importance and Benefits of Disaster Recovery

Check Point Research has come up with some worrying figures: in the second quarter of 2024, Brazil faced 1,636 cyber attacks per week, a 30% increase on the same period last year. These figures make it clear that protection against digital disasters is more urgent than ever.

Here are the key benefits of a disaster recovery plan:

Reduced disruption: rapid return to normal operations;

Protect against financial loss: reduce the cost of downtime;

Increased digital security: mitigate the impact of virtual attacks;

Regulatory compliance: meet standards such as LGPD

The increasing sophistication of cyber-attacks, such as the use of artificial intelligence, reinforces the importance of having a solid strategy. Being prepared can make all the difference in times of crisis.

Interview with the Expert: All About Disaster Recovery

Now that you know the basic concepts and benefits of DR, check out Rodrigo Radaieski’s answers to some of the most frequently asked questions.

What are the most common Disaster Recovery models on the market today?

There are several approaches to Disaster Recovery. These include:

Services, such as SaaS, that include DR solutions in their packages, making it easier to adopt.

Manual models that require you to schedule backups and store them in different locations, such as two different data centers or public clouds.

Automated DR configurations that perform recovery in a different cluster, regardless of location.

Why should companies worry about this strategy at all times?

There are different types of crises: in addition to the usual ones, such as floods, fires, and other natural disasters, there is a new one, the pandemic.

The company’s ability to adapt to these scenarios will determine its success and its ability to maintain business continuity.

Disaster Recovery therefore acts as a tool for the company to adapt to the various and unexpected changes that may occur.

Can we think of Disaster Recovery as a tool against hackers and digital threats?

Disaster Recovery is a resource whose usefulness is always based on the various risks to business continuity.

Power outages, cyber-attacks and cybercrime, DDoS attacks, human error, equipment failure, natural disasters and the recent pandemic. These are the pillars of a Disaster Recovery solution.

What are the key factors a company should consider before looking at a Disaster Recovery solution?

The company must first think about what is essential to them: what systems and lines of business are critical to maintaining their business.

This allows them to analyze the most critical IT systems and accurately identify the key reasons for considering Disaster Recovery.

Can we say that the backup policy is a Disaster Recovery strategy?

Backup is directly linked to the Disaster Recovery strategy and the needs of the business.

It is also tied to two metrics used in the process:

RTO (Recovery Time Objective): The maximum time for a system to be back online.

2. RPO (Recovery Point Objective): This is where backup comes in, and is tied to the maximum recovery time for your system.

For example, if your company cannot afford to lose more than 12 hours of data, you should always backup within that time frame.

Are there any implementation prerequisites that managers need to know about before they adopt Disaster Recovery?

They need to understand what is important to the business—especially as it relates to IT. For example, what systems are in use.

However, it is also necessary to consider how to prevent Disaster Recovery—something Ascenty can help with.

Being responsible for maintaining an entire electrical system, with generators, UPS and data centers, for example, can be complicated. After all, it is not the core business of many companies.

Therefore, moving these sites to a resilient infrastructure, such as Ascenty’s data centers, can be a good alternative to avoid outages.

For this reason, the data center is an excellent choice, as an alternative for those who have an on-premises infrastructure or even the use of 2 different data centers.

In other words, thinking about how to avoid the damage caused by a disaster can be a starting point for designing the best Disaster Recovery strategy for the company.

It is also important to determine the minimum resources a company needs to operate. With the pandemic, this detail has become even more important to consider in a Disaster Recovery plan.

What Are the Best Practices for Managing the Disaster Recovery Environment?

Whenever possible, ensure online alignment and synchronization between the primary operations site and the DR site. This helps prevent data loss and significantly reduces recovery time, allowing the entire system to be restored more quickly when needed.

The chosen approach should align with the company’s budget, the acceptable level of data loss, and the required recovery time.

How Does Digital Security Work in a DR Environment?

The information security of both the production and backup environments is treated with the same level of importance.

Once Disaster Recovery is activated, it must maintain the same security measures as a conventional environment, as it will temporarily support production operations.

Who Is Responsible for Managing the DR Plan?

Typically, the IT team oversees management. However, the decision to activate a Disaster Recovery site is made collaboratively with company executives, who should establish a Crisis Committee. In this case, appointing a Crisis Manager is crucial to coordinating the process effectively.

What are the advantages of DRaaS?

DRaaS adds automation to the process, enabling faster adoption. While it offers less customization, it is significantly more accessible and practical for organizations.

What Sets Ascenty’s Disaster Recovery Service Apart from competitors?

Ascenty stands out for its ability to adapt to each customer’s environment, needs, and specific requirements.

With a highly flexible product portfolio

and a diversified infrastructure spanning multiple locations—including regions outside the country—Ascenty ensures that customers receive the most reliable and adaptable Disaster Recovery solution on the market.

How Does Ascenty’s Disaster Recovery Implementation Work?

The implementation process is tailored to each client’s specific needs.

The Pre-Sales and Architecture team identifies all requirements and resources.
The project is then handed off to the Delivery team, which executes it according to the proposed guidelines.

Implementation timelines vary from 15 to 30 days to as long as four months, depending on the project’s complexity.

In addition, Ascenty performs recurring tests to validate and update the solution. Everything is done to adapt the disaster recovery to the customer’s constantly renewed infrastructure and to protect it from beginning to end.

If testing requires the client’s team to temporarily vacate their workplace, Ascenty offers fully equipped Work Areas with connectivity, telephony, and everything needed to maintain business continuity.

Your Peace of Mind Starts with Prevention

Disaster Recovery is more than just a strategy—it’s a safeguard that ensures business continuity in the face of unforeseen challenges.

With Ascenty, you gain an experienced partner who can design a Disaster Recovery plan tailored to your needs. Schedule a meeting with our experts today and secure the protection your company deserves.