If Hurricane Sandy taught us anything it’s that we’ve always got to be prepared. With the cost of server downtime coming in at $12,500 per hour, businesses can’t afford to ignore disaster recovery. However it’s not always easy to know where to start.

Below are four expert tips for effective disaster recovery:

1.Enlist the help of a managed service provider (MSP): Typically, small businesses don’t have a large or experienced IT department that can handle all of their disaster recovery needs. Contracting the help of an MSP takes the pressure off your IT department and frees them up to work on more strategic business initiatives. 

2.Take the hybrid cloud approach: With the hybrid cloud, businesses get the best of both worlds as it combines aspects of the public and private cloud into a single, unified solution. Businesses owe some local hardware while an MSP provides certain resources. A study conducted by Wakefield Research found that 75 percent hybrid cloud users believe that their IT processes are less complicated after implementation.

3.Create a sophisticated plan: Failing to create a disaster recovery plan could mean the difference between your company staying afloat or sinking. Create a detailed plan outlining everything from who’s in charge when disaster strikes to a list of critical business applications to where you store your data.   

4.Frequently test your plan: There’s no such thing as being too prepared – especially when it comes to securing critical data and safeguarding your business. Make sure to test your disaster recovery plan frequently to ensure that all systems work.