There are countless potential threats to the volumes of data K–12 school districts collect: Almost daily cyberattack attempts. Natural disasters. Human error or system failures.

The errors could delay crucial operations such as payroll — or even force schools or districts to temporarily close if there is no way to quickly recover any lost data.

It’s important that K–12 IT leaders and other administrators are able to quickly recover any lost information, and a simple backup isn’t enough. That’s why disaster recovery matters.

Instead of just making copies of information as you would with a simple backup, disaster recovery “refers to the plan and processes for quickly reestablishing access to applications, data, and IT resources after an outage,” according to IBM.

Data is backed up to multiple locations — creating a backup of a backup — on dedicated remote servers, either on-premises or in the cloud. Innovations in disaster recovery mean there are more options for administrators to find solutions that make the most sense for their data and budget needs. Disaster Recovery as a Service, through the cloud, promises fast recovery and flexibility. DRaaS can be fully managed by a provider, assisted or self-service.

However it’s deployed, the main goal is to minimize interruptions.