Most organizations understand the need for a disaster recovery plan. This is a crucial business planning process that is important for all enterprise software, including ERP systems such as Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Dynamics 365. Although it is essential to have a plan, the plan is not complete if it hasn’t been tested and timed. In other words, have you tried to run through or rehearse the plan? Do you know how long it would take to get the system back and fully operational? And what are the costs associated with any downtime? Knowing those answers may make you rethink and modify your current disaster plan. By testing and timing, you can often improve your plan to make it more realistic, to better manage the risks, and to set expectations accordingly.
Disaster Recovery with Microsoft Dynamics NAV
In the on-premise model of Dynamics NAV, the customer (or their designated partner) performs the required upgrades and maintains the system within the customer’s data center. In this scenario, your team (or partner) is responsible for the work, costs, and risks associated with ongoing management of the system. When evaluating this option, be sure to consider the full range of costs including hardware, software, training, system updates, disaster recovery, and security.
A disaster recovery plan is a critical component of system maintenance and requires dedicated hardware to perform backups as well as replicate and store those backups off-site. These SQL Servers can be attacked by ransomware and other viruses. Therefore, it is also prudent to have parallel systems ready to operate if and when disaster strikes. In addition to hardware, software is also required for testing purposes. Today, a fully loaded Azure/SQL server is not expensive and can be turned off when testing is complete to avoid recurring costs.
With an on-premise deployment, existing data center investments can be leveraged. Customers can also configure their enterprise preferences to meet the regulatory and compliance needs of their business, as well as ensure business continuity in areas with limited public infrastructure.
Disaster Recovery with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
Dynamics 365 Business Central is a Microsoft-hosted cloud solution, meaning there is no client to install on machines and users can access the solution through a browser. It also means that Microsoft manages all system updates, backups, disaster recovery, and security. Disaster recovery is built-in through replication on the cloud.
Cloud deployments provide a cloud service that is easy to scale up or down as needed, as well as data centers that are fully managed by Microsoft. Cloud deployments include high availability, disaster recovery, sandbox environments, and application lifecycle management. When needed, data failover in the cloud, automated deployment and continuous updates, and elastic compute capacity are available.
Disaster recovery should be a critical component of choosing the best solution for your company and we’re here to help you make sense of your options. Would you like to review your disaster recovery plan? Please contact us today to speak with our experts at Western Computer.
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