Is your Exeter school ready for enhanced backups and disaster recovery? For schools and businesses, technology is at the heart of their operations. Schools typically use technology to plan lessons, store student records, and to complete daily administration tasks.
But as cyber threats continue to increase, accidental data loss, and the risk of physical disasters like fires of floods are becoming more likely. Without a solid backup and disaster recovery (BCDR Exeter) plan, schools risk losing sensitive student and staff data, disrupted learning, and even compliance issues.
Implementing robust backup solutions and a disaster recovery strategy is essential for safeguarding a school’s operations. The question is, are schools and businesses in Exeter truly prepared to protect their critical data?
The Importance of Backup and Disaster Recovery Services in Ensuring Business Continuity
Schools and educational institutions continue to experience major disruption due to cyber-attacks. As of 2024, government research found that just over half (52%) of primary schools and 71% of secondary schools had experienced a cyber-attack in the last year.
This poses a detrimental impact on student learning through data breaches causing significant downtime and potential financial losses for the school.
When disaster strikes, schools and businesses face the possibility of accidental data deletion, partial failures, and physical disasters like flooding or fires. All of these can result in the loss of crucial information.
Without proper BCDR solutions, recovering from these events can be costly and time-consuming.
The risks schools face without DR planning
- Loss of Student and Staff Records: Grades, attendance records, and personal details could be permanently lost.
- Disruption to Learning: Without access to essential digital resources, lesson plans, and online tools, students’ education can suffer.
- Financial and Reputational Damage: Data breaches can result in fines and damage a school’s reputation.
Best Practices for Backup and Disaster Recovery in Exeter Schools
Schools and modern businesses can ensure data protection by following best practices that offer robust failover solutions and protect their cloud infrastructure, like:
1. Automated, Regular Backups
To increase backup retention, schools should use automated cloud backup solutions, ensuring that all critical data is copied and stored securely. Backups should occur at regular intervals to prevent data loss between updates.
2. Offsite and Cloud Backup Storage
Storing backups on-premises is risky. If a disaster occurs at your school, all data could be lost. However, cloud BCDR solutions provide an extra layer of protection, allowing schools to recover data from any location.
3. Encryption and Cyber Security Measures
To prevent unauthorised access, cloud backups should be encrypted and stored securely. Schools should also implement strong cyber security practices, including multi-factor authentication (MFA), firewalls, and endpoint protection.
4. Audit and Risk: Regular Testing and Updates
Backup software is only effective if it works when needed. With an incident response team, Exeter schools can conduct regular disaster recovery drills to test how quickly and effectively their data can be restored.
Keeping BCDR plans updated guarantees schools and businesses can remain secure against evolving threats.
5. Compliance and Risk with Data Protection Regulations
Schools and businesses must ensure their BCDR plans align with GDPR and other data protection regulations. This helps prevent legal and financial issues in the event of a data breach, and ensures their business continuity.
FAQs
What does BCDR stand for?
Standing for Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery, it refers to the strategies, technologies, and processes that ensure an organisation can continue operating during and after a disruption.
What is the BCDR procedure?
This is a structured approach to maintaining business operations and restoring IT systems in the event of a disruption. It typically involves a risk assessment, data backup and protection, disaster recovery plan, business continuity plan, and testing and updates.
What should you include in a BCDR plan?
A BCDR plan should cover all aspects of data protection, recovery, and business continuity. This includes critical data and system backups, recovery time objectives, recovery point objectives, indecent response, and a communication strategy.
What are the BCDR standards?
BCDR standards provide best practices and guidelines for implementing effective business continuity and disaster recovery strategies.
How BCNS Supports Schools in Exeter with Backup and Disaster Recovery
At BCNS, we strive to ensure every school and business in Exeter have robust BCDR to ensure their advanced business continuity. We use comprehensive backup technology and business continuity disaster recovery to ensure enhanced business infrastructure for schools across the city.
Our Backup and Disaster Recovery Solutions include:
✔ Automated Backup Services – Ensuring critical school data is securely backed up regularly.
✔ Cloud and Offsite Storage – Protecting data from localised disasters with a secure offsite backup and failover strategies.
✔ Disaster Recovery Planning – Customised recovery solutions to restore systems quickly.
✔ Cyber Security Integration – Protecting businesses from cyber criminals with backups that prevent ransomware and other threats.
✔ Regular Testing & Compliance Checks – Ensuring backup solutions meet industry regulations.
When your school chooses to partner with us, you gain the business continuity support and the backup and recovery solution that is right for you. We ensure strategic level guidance that enhances your business continuity plan like never before.
Provide your school with the peace of mind that it deserves through remaining equipped with secure and recoverable data.
Comprehensive BCDR Exeter
Schools and businesses in Exeter cannot afford to overlook the importance of backup and disaster recovery. With cyber threats and unexpected disasters on the rise, having a comprehensive backup solution is essential for protecting student and staff data.
By implementing best practices like automated backups, secure cloud storage, and regular recovery testing, Exeter schools can minimise downtime and ensure business continuity to support uninterrupted learning.
We are here to help Exeter schools build a robust backup and disaster recovery strategy tailored to their needs. Contact us today.
Book a free consultation today and ensure your school is prepared for the unexpected.
