D&H Distributing is beefing up its disaster recovery and backup training opportunities with a new initiative to help its network of resellers prepare a contingency plan in case of a an emergency system failure.

“Every business should have a robust, up-to-date server architecture,” said Jeff Davis, senior vice president of Sales at D&H, “and they should most certainly have efficient data backup. It’s shocking how many business owners remain underprotected for the sake of avoiding an initial expenditure on BDR products, when their whole livelihoods could depend on it.”

D&H noted that having a disaster recovery plan in place is especially important for small and midsized businesses, many of which don’t have because of the proposed cost and effort of setting up preventative measures. With the recent support cutoff for Windows XP and the upcoming end-of-life announcement for Windows Server 2003 in July 2015, D&H is urging its solution providers to think about the future and how they can protect their sensitive data in case of an emergency.

“We’re trying to instill the value of disaster recovery as a crucial long-term investment,” said Davis. “A secure disaster management plan will allow companies to safeguard essential customer data—and in turn, their own businesses. This is not just an intelligent way to conduct themselves on an everyday basis, it’s simple self-preservation. It could make the difference between a company surviving or closing down in the wake of an adverse event.”

The distributor is currently offering several disaster recovery products to the channel, including Carbonite Server Basic and the McAfee SaaS Endpoint Protection Suite. D&H also will offer a new partner services marketing brochure template for solution providers.

Earlier this week, IT solutions provider Bluelock released a new recovery contingency checklist for companies looking to protect their enterprise data in case of an emergency.