In Part I, we discussed best data protection practices, such as developing plans, how to handle devices, checking for legal obligations, setting up metrics, and restricting access. In Part II, we will continue discussing further best data protection practices.

6/ Centralised Data Management

It is important to update data through reporting, monitoring and policy enforcement through centralised management policy. It will help new employees as there will be just one system to understand.

7/ How Employees Should Work?

Companies must understand how their staff should respond to the recovery plan. There must be some formal benchmarks, ways to improve performance of staff and to make data effective.

8/ Check and Re-Check the Plan

To meet compliance standards, big companies are bound to check their plans. Small companies can practice their specific standards to test how much time recovery plans take in case of any failure. Complexity or depth of a plan must be related to cost analysis (hourly cost when data is not in access).

9/ Backup Frequency

To reduce the risk of data loss, companies need to have frequent backups at geographically dispersed locations. This means, redundancies should be in place. The key is to know your data so that you can store them in tiers, with mission-critical data segregated and stored in highly available vaults, where as, older, less accessed data stored in cheaper servers.

10/ Damaged Hard Drive

If your hard drive fails, you are better off calling a data recovery expert rather than trying to figure out yourself. Data recovery specialists have years of experience dealing with hard drive failures.

11/ Pick the Right Provider

Choose established experts that use clean rooms and are credible. Read customers reviews on these companies before making a decision. Contact their references,

Sometimes, even the best practices could go wrong; so firms must adopt some precautionary measures to retrieve information:

• Use free utilities to help you retrieve data from USB sticks or hard drives, while making sure that they provide support and are free from malware. Select the most reasonable tools to restore data accurately and quickly.
• Use cloud storage and local hard drives simultaneously for reliable backups in order to eliminate the chances of data loss.
• Implement data centre redundancy for maximum protection. Avoiding redundancy to save a little is not wise.
• Search a partner that is well-reputed and who can provide round the clock support through phone and email.