--- title: "Disaster Recovery 201: An advanced course" description: "There’s a very good piece by Esther Shein over at Computerworld today called “Disaster recovery 101: What you need to know”." canonical_url: https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/posts/disaster-recovery-201-advanced-course/ locale: en last_updated: 2026-10-27 --- [Acronis Blog](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/) # Disaster Recovery 201: An advanced course There’s a very good piece by Esther Shein over at Computerworld today called “Disaster recovery 101: What you need to know”. [![Image 2: Acronis Editorial Team](https://staticfiles.acronis.com/images/content/d85707ae91461544212d39836dc32b42.png)](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/authors/acronis/ "Acronis Editorial Team") [Acronis Editorial Team](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/authors/acronis/) 1 min read Last updated 26 January 2015 There’s a very good piece by Esther Shein over at Computerworld today called “Disaster recovery 101: What you need to know”. Shein does a great job of reviewing the pressing need that all businesses have for DR, and cites some scary statistics about the paltry uptake of DR among SMBs. The most important part of her story covers the need for companies to have a DR **plan**. This is great advice, and comes before selecting a technology provider to help implement that plan. We couldn’t agree more. Shein also repeats our mantra, “Test, test test.” It’s good advice, and bears repeating because DR testing is the kind of eat-your-spinach advice that is easy to ignore. But if you don’t test your DR plan, then you don’t have a DR plan. I called this post “Disaster Recovery 201” because I’d like to add a few things to Shein’s piece that are a bit more advanced. First, I want to point out that using a cloud storage or cloud backup solution is NOT disaster recovery. There are many scenarios where all you will need to do is recover some data, but true DR means being able to spin up servers that end-users can connect to, to keep working, and the cloud backups stuff can’t do that. Second, Shein quotes someone in the story as advising triaging what gets backed up by file type. Again, this advice, while well meant (prioritizing what to protect _is_ important), doing so at the file type level is the wrong level of granularity. What corporate IT needs to is classify their servers as tier 1, 2 or 3, based on the impact to the company if a server becomes unavailable to the business and its employees. Email is tier 1 for almost all businesses. ERP is for manufacturing firms; document management for law firms; web servers for e-commerce, etc. Once you determine the tiers of servers, and protect them accordingly (RPO and RTO that meet the needs of your business in a disaster), then you implement a data protection / snapshotting technology that captures everything on the server – the OS, app, settings and data – and protects it. Fool around with file types and you will be lost in the weeds in no time. [Cybersecurity](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/tags/cybersecurity/) [Cyber protection](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/tags/cyber-protection/) ## Written by ![Image 3: Acronis Editorial Team](https://staticfiles.acronis.com/images/content/d85707ae91461544212d39836dc32b42.png) Acronis Editorial Team Acronis is a global cyber protection company that provides natively integrated cybersecurity, data protection, and endpoint management for managed service providers (MSPs), small and medium businesses (SMBs), and enterprise IT departments. [Previous post](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/posts/investment-advice-high-roi-disaster-recovery/) [Investment Advice: The High ROI of Disaster Recovery](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/posts/investment-advice-high-roi-disaster-recovery/) [Next post](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/posts/nscaled-partners-equinix/) [nScaled Partners with Equinix](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/posts/nscaled-partners-equinix/) About Acronis Acronis is a leader in AI-native cyber protection, unifying data protection, cybersecurity, IT operations and hybrid infrastructure to deliver business continuity, security and compliance with less cost and complexity. More than 21,000 service providers trust Acronis to protect over 750,000 businesses in 150 countries. Acronis is headquartered in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. [Add as a preferred source on Google](https://google.com/preferences/source?q=acronis.com) ## Related stories Want to learn more? Read the latest stories featuring this solution on our blog. [Acronis Blog](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/) ![Image 4: stc Bahrain and Acronis partner to bring advanced endpoint security to businesses in Bahrain](https://staticfiles.acronis.com/images/blog-card/9600f3eea83b8f4e168ea6c1409c8c26.png) [stc Bahrain and Acronis partner to bring advanced endpoint security to businesses in Bahrain](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/posts/stc-bahrain-and-acronis-partner-to-bring-endpoint-security-to-businesses/) We are proud to announce a strategic partnership with stc Bahrain, expanding access to advanced cybersecurity services for businesses across Bahrain. **October 26, 2026**3 min read ![Image 5: Introducing New Acronis CEO: Prakash Panjwani](https://staticfiles.acronis.com/images/blog-card/30cb571f6f1aaa131733e5727a4a250c.png) [Introducing New Acronis CEO: Prakash Panjwani](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/posts/introducing-new-acronis-ceo-prakash-panjwani/) We are pleased to announce the appointment of our new Chief Executive Officer, Prakash Panjwani. A veteran cybersecurity CEO, Panjwani previously served as CEO of WatchGuard Technologies and SafeNet. **October 15, 2026**2 min read ![Image 6: Acronis expands MDR toward broader workspace protection](https://staticfiles.acronis.com/images/blog-card/18e90e89f5ec4ef0901f19008d4ccbf2.png) [Acronis expands MDR toward broader workspace protection](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/posts/acronis-expands-mdr-toward-broader-workspace-protection/) Acronis is expanding the MDR service with capabilities that make this expertise easier to deliver and help partners address more risks. The developments build on a broader commitment to managed security: helping service providers protect the connected workspace while giving customers access to the expertise needed to investigate threats, respond effectively and maintain business continuity. **October 13, 2026**6 min read