What would you do if you turned on your computer and saw only a blank screen? No files or programs to open, just a blank slate. What data are you most worried about losing? Do you know how to get it back?

IT backups are an essential defense against IT disasters because they can restore crucial data and systems if hardware memory is compromised or erased.

If your server goes down, do you know how to get your systems running again?

What happens to your data if your facility is damaged or unreachable?

What do you do when your business productivity drops because your IT system is down?

IT disaster recovery answers questions like these, allowing you to respond to system failures and minimize downtime.

What happens if your business productivity comes to a grinding halt?

For every hour of downtime, your company loses money and, sometimes, its reputation.

How would you minimize the downtime to come back online? How could you prevent this from happening in the future?

Fortunately, there are ways to prevent downtime, lost revenue, and damaged reputations.

What would you do if you turned off your computer and all your files were gone? What would you do if none of the programs worked or had also vanished?

This is stressful on a personal computer, but what if this happened on your work laptop? Or for your office?

Would you have to start from scratch? Or would you have copies of the data saved and ready to reinstall?

Backup and recovery systems safely store data from a designated timeframe in case data is erased or compromised.

What happens if, suddenly, one of your IT systems fails? Who do you call? How do you respond? How long until you can come back online and continue working?

If you don’t create response plans for IT system failures and emergencies, you could lose valuable data, time, reputation, and profits while gaining immense frustration.

When IT systems fail, companies lose profits until systems come back online. If data backups aren’t set up or fail, data vanishes, deleting hours, days, or even years of work and information.

So, what can organizations do to minimize downtime and protect data in a crisis?

Your company’s internal IT department or IT provider can help you create an incident response plan.

Summary
Data backups and IT continuity are often looked at as the same thing. There are differences that can have consequences for a business. Here's a look at the difference between backing a basic data backup and IT continuity.
Basic Data Backup Defined
Data backup means having a copy of a specific set of data from a specific point in time.