Disaster Recovery: The Skyward Way

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Tom Kellnhauser

by Tom Kellnhauser

Tom Kellnhauser IT Industry Specialist

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Your students practice lining up and filing quietly down the halls during tornado and fire drills. You discuss the importance of safety procedures during severe weather awareness week. You know disasters can strike. But have you prepared your data for times like these?

An unexpected disaster can take many forms, from extreme weather to a data breach. In today’s digital world, everything from gradebooks to paychecks depends on technology. You run the risk of losing it all if an effective disaster recovery plan is not in place. When the unexpected happens, do you have a solution in place that would recover your data and get you back to normal operations within 24 hours? If not, this post is for you.

A Quick Quiz

Read through the following seven statements and answer true or false for each.

Our school district has a complete written and redundant disaster recovery plan.

We have a plan in place that does not require the use of tape backups.

We test our backup data regularly.

We have hardware and application replicas of our existing system located off site, and our data could run on these systems.

We have considered the security and expense of manual off-site vaulting facilities.

We have a plan that does not require additional time to deliver our media.

If a disaster strikes, our data will be intact, easily accessible, and up and running within 24 hours, including our exact set of applications and all supporting files.

If you couldn’t answer true to all of those statements, don’t wait—now is the time to put a better disaster recovery plan in place.

The Skyward Solution

We’ve teamed with ISCorp, our exclusive hosting partner, to develop a disaster recovery plan you can count on. Here’s how it works:

Your district’s data will be securely backed up at the ISCorp data center on a pre-determined basis, ensuring that if anything happens at your school, your data will be safe.

If a disaster strikes, you call us to let us know. We’re here for you 24/7.

ISCorp will activate your data and recover it from the last backup.

You’ll be able to continue your school operations from any location with an internet connection. Your data will be intact, with your exact set of applications and all supporting files.

Our guarantee: No matter how severe the disaster, your data will be up and running within 24 hours of notification.

Learn more in this 2-minute Quick Hits video:

The Options

We offer several disaster recovery options, based on the frequency in which backups occur. The question your district must answer is, how much work can you afford to lose if disaster strikes? The strongest recovery plan ensures you’ll never lose more than two hours of data. With less frequent backup plans, backups will occur once or twice a week.

Be sure every aspect of your technology solution, even features you hope you’ll never use, support the goals you have in place for your students and your district. While there’s nothing wrong with being optimistic, the responsible thing to do, for our kids and our communities, is also to prepare for the worst.

Follow-Up Resource: Your Disaster Recovery Plan

Want to learn more about how you can protect your district’s data with Skyward’s disaster recovery plan? Contact your sales representative today.