Any business can suffer material impacts from system failures, power or network outages, cyber attacks, accidents, and natural disasters. If you haven’t planned for disaster, it’s already too late to recover.

Data is a critical resource for contractors now more than ever. That means that business continuity planning and anticipating how you’ll recover from a disaster should be considered key business strategies. You’ll want to ensure your company can continue to function and thrive even when there are unexpected interruptions to your IT assets.

A simple data backup is no longer enough, but the good news is that cloud computing can make disaster recovery planning easier and simpler.

First, let’s define some key terms:

What is business continuity?

Advanced preparations made by an organization to ensure that it can continue up and running during unexpected interruptions.

What is business continuity planning?

Business continuity planning is the process of creating a system of prevention and recovery from potential threats to a company. The plan ensures the protection of people and assets, while maintaining their function in the event of a disaster.

What is disaster recovery?

Disaster recovery means regaining access and functionality of your company’s IT hardware, applications, and data following a technology interruption. A disaster recovery plan allows businesses to restore their most critical IT services and business operations following an emergency.

While no company can remove all of the risks, you should have an effective strategy to mitigate the effects of a system or data outage.

Make cloud computing part of your business continuity planning.

Cloud computing can be an ideal asset in disaster recovery and business continuity. Because cloud computing uses the internet to run applications and store data, your most critical data can be backed up and easily recovered.

Moreover, data storage and the delivery of key applications over the internet means that these functions are distributed, rather than localized, which means that it’s a safer method for storage overall.

Cloud computing provides critical system redundancy and replication of your data. If there’s a smaller outage or interruption, cloud customers are likely to see a 100% restoration, and fewer interruptions than a competitor with an on-premise data interruption.

Using the cloud in your disaster recovery planning means that you will more likely return to full operations faster and more efficiently than if you had on-premise IT systems.

Your cloud provider is responsible for the core resilience of the infrastructure that they provide, which means that they are key partners in maintaining business continuity for their customers.

Because you’re outsourcing the risk and responsibility for the management and maintenance of your data, your cloud provider will be a pillar of support if you have to recover from a disaster. You can work with your cloud provider to identify your risks and learn about their disaster recovery precautions and average recovery times.

Your cloud provider can help you to identify your Recovery Time Objective and Recovery Point Objective so you are able to continue modified business operations even if you experience a disaster. Recovery Time Objective is the maximum amount of time your infrastructure can be down before there’s damage to your business operations. Recovery Point Objective is the maximum amount of data that can be lost in a service disruption.

Here are five advantages to cloud computing as part of your disaster recovery plan.

1. Proactive monitoring so that your IT systems are managed to minimize interruption and thwart malicious attacks.
2. Faster recovery of regular operations from small or even significant interruptions.
3. Fast rollback of any problematic release.
4. Redundancy and replication of data so that data recovery is most likely 100% complete.
5. Peace of mind from having a cloud partner to support your business continuity objectives.

Conclusion

It’s crucial to have a business continuity plan that includes a disaster recovery program so that you will be able to continue operating your business, even in catastrophic situations. With a plan for business continuity your company can be resilient despite difficulties in front of you. Find out more about how eCMS  (https://computerguidance.com/products/) in the cloud can be a part of your business continuity and disaster recovery strategy.

Businesses rely more heavily than ever before on digital information to help make smart decisions, run operations efficiently and productively, and to connect more meaningfully with their customers. But how can you utilize this digital goldmine in a cost-effective way?  

Construction businesses, like most companies operating today, collect a large amount of data. While this data can be a benefit to your business, the sheer amount of information means that it’s more difficult than ever to keep every piece of company information, and all your programs and services live and running on your company’s servers.  

First things, first.  

What is Cloud Management? 

Cloud management is the management of cloud computing products and services. Essentially, that means careful documentation and tracking of your IT systems in the cloud to maintain oversight and administrative control of cloud computing products and services.  

Cloud management means you can spend less money for the same level of operations. Here are four ways that you can reduce your IT system maintenance and management costs by moving to the cloud.  

1. Buy Less Hardware 

Servers and the networks that connect them are expensive. Moving to the cloud means that you can eliminate new spending on hardware, software, and middle ware, while still benefiting from access to the most advanced technologies, an investment your cloud provider will take on. And when you are ready to grow, you can take on additional capacity for data and systems as needed. That’s smart and efficient. By using only what you need, cloud management ensures that every dollar you spend goes directly to infrastructure management.  

2. Reduce Labor Costs 

Streamline your workforce. One of your biggest budget items is your staff costs and expertise in IT is expensive. Moving to cloud management might not mean downsizing staff, but you’ll be better able to assign your IT team to areas where they can be most effective. Your IT team can focus on supporting and expanding existing infrastructure instead of managing the network, handling storage capacity, upgrading software, or tackling security concerns. An additional benefit of moving your operations to the cloud is that you can eliminate the cost and responsibility of constantly re-certifying your IT staff as system technology changes so quickly. Besides, construction has its own necessary expertise, and it’s more productive to ensure your team is an expert in your field.  

3. Increase Productivity

Cloud computing is fast, and that means applications run without hiccups or interruptions, which makes it easier for your entire team to communicate and collaborate. With cloud management you’ll spend less time overall waiting and more time working. You’ll also benefit from better data consistency. Everyone on your team can access the same data in the same way, rather than navigating a patchwork system. And you’ll free up your IT people from all the requests to convert data into usable information.  

4. Cut Maintenance Expenses 

It can be tough for construction businesses to judge how much to invest in their IT systems, only to have servers sit half empty. A cloud-based system means that you pay only for what you use. That means your investment in IT is as lean as you need it to be. What’s more, you can cut your energy costs, since cloud management uses less electricity. And you can also eliminate the need for security software, security monitoring, performance monitoring, and other kinds of alert software.  

Some Things To Consider 

Consider your ROI. With cloud management, easy access to your data from anywhere becomes less costly and easier. Pay as you go means you only pay for what you’re using, so you know that your investment is as lean as you need it to be. And that investment also ensures that your IT infrastructure is current with the latest technology and IT practices.  

Consider the benefits of redeploying your IT team so they can focus on managing the complexities of your construction business.  

Consider how you can re-invigorate your IT budget with a move to the cloud. Cloud computing helps companies run their organizations more efficiently, provide better service for their customers, and boost their overall profits. 

With cloud maintenance, you’ll be better able to compete with other contractors and construction businesses who have already made the move to the cloud. And making the move ahead of your competition will give you a significant advantage.  

Find out more about how eCMS in the cloud can help you improve your business operations for less.  

The construction industry is rapidly digitizing, thanks to new technologies that help companies work more efficiently and productively. Digital technologies that benefit construction companies include communications and collaboration tools, project planning and management software, business analytics and reporting programs, and the data processing power and storage facilities to handle increasing amounts of digital data. 

Maintaining these new technologies means that construction companies are now tasked with managing an increasingly complex IT infrastructure.

Stewardship of crucial IT infrastructure such as software and data management requires highly qualified employees. Smaller contractors may find it difficult to maintain a staff of highly skilled IT professionals. Some construction companies are too small to add any IT staff at all.   

Even larger construction companies with existing IT departments may face significant challenges to managing their IT infrastructure. Increased risks, costs, and time require more than simple oversight and optimization of software and data usage. 

Furthermore, industry standards for maintaining, managing, updating, upgrading systems, and security change continually. Contractors must adapt and become experts in both construction management and information technology.

One solution to the challenges of administering two systems is cloud migration. That’s where a company moves some or all of its IT infrastructure into the cloud.