Disaster recovery plan

A disaster recovery plan is a documented process for recovering and protecting a business IT infrastructure in the event of a disaster. Basically, it provides a clear idea about the various actions that need to be taken before, during and after a disaster.

Disasters are natural or man-made. Examples include industrial accidents, oil spills, stampedes, fires, nuclear explosions/nuclear radiation, and acts of war, etc. Other types of man-made disasters include more cosmic scenarios of catastrophic global warming, nuclear war, and bioterrorism, while natural disasters are earthquakes, floods, heat waves, hurricanes/cyclones, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, tornadoes, and landslides. , cosmic and asteroid threats. .

Disaster cannot be eliminated, but proactive preparation can mitigate data loss and business interruption. Organizations require a disaster recovery plan that includes a formal Plan to consider the impacts of outages on all essential business processes and their dependencies. The phased plan consists of precautions to minimize the effects of a disaster so that the organization can continue to operate or quickly resume mission-critical functions.

The Disaster Recovery Plan must be prepared by the Disaster Recovery Committee, which includes representatives from all departments or critical areas of department functions. The committee must have at least one representative from administration, computing, risk management, records management, security, and building maintenance. The committee’s responsibility is to prepare a schedule to establish a reasonable time frame for completion of the written plan. It is also responsible for identifying critical and non-critical departments. One procedure used to determine the critical needs of a department is to document all functions performed by each department. Once the primary functions have been recognized, the operations and processes are ranked in order of priority: essential, important, and non-essential.

Disaster recovery planning typically involves an analysis of business processes and continuity needs. Before generating a detailed plan, an organization typically performs a business impact analysis (BIA) and risk analysis (RA), and sets recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO). RTO describes the target amount of time a business application can be idle, typically measured in hours, minutes, or seconds. The RPO describes the point in time before an application should be recovered.

The plan should define the roles and responsibilities of the disaster recovery team members and outline the criteria for putting the plan into action; however, there is no one right type of disaster recovery plan, nor is there a one-size-fits-all disaster recovery. plan. Basically, there are three basic strategies that are presented in all disaster recovery plans: (a) preventive measures, (b) detective measures, and (c) corrective measures.

(a) Preventive measures: will try to prevent a disaster from happening. These measures seek to identify and reduce risks. They are designed to mitigate or prevent an event from happening. These measures may include maintaining off-site data backups, using surge protectors, installing generators, and performing routine inspections.

(b) Detection Measures: These measures include installing fire alarms, using up-to-date anti-virus software, conducting training sessions for employees, and installing server and network monitoring software.

(c) Corrective measures: These measures focus on fixing or restoring systems after a disaster. Corrective measures may consist of maintaining critical documents in the Disaster Recovery Plan.

The Plan must include a list of first level contacts and people/departments within the company, who can declare a disaster and activate DR operations. It should also include an outline and content setting out the exact procedures to be followed in the event of a disaster. At least 2-4 potential DR sites with hardware/software that meets or exceeds the current production environment must be available. DR best practices state that DR sites must be at least 50 miles from the existing production site for Recovery Point Objective (RPO)/Restore Time Objective (RTO) requirements to be met.

The recovery plan must provide for the initial and ongoing training of employees. Skills are needed in the rebuilding and salvage phases of the recovery process. Your initial training can be accomplished through professional seminars, special in-house educational programs, the wise use of consultants and vendors, and individual studies tailored to your department’s needs. A minimal amount of training is needed to assist professional restorers/remediation contractors and others who have little knowledge of your information, level of importance, or general operations.

Any documented plan should be fully tested and all test reports should be recorded for future viewing. This test should be treated as a live run and given plenty of time. Once the test procedures have been completed, an initial “dry run” of the plan is performed by performing a structured walk test. The test will provide additional information on any additional steps that need to be included, changes to procedures that are not effective, and other appropriate adjustments. These may not be apparent unless an actual dry run test is performed. The plan is subsequently updated to correct any problems identified during testing. Initially, testing of the plan is done in sections and after normal business hours to minimize disruption to the overall operations of the organization. As the plan is refined, future testing will occur during normal business hours.

Once the disaster recovery plan has been written and tested, the plan is submitted to management for approval. It is the ultimate responsibility of top management that the organization has a documented and tested plan. Management is responsible for establishing the policies, procedures, and responsibilities for comprehensive contingency planning and for reviewing and approving the contingency plan annually, documenting such reviews in writing.

Another important aspect that is often overlooked has to do with how often DR Plans are updated. Annual updates are recommended, but some industries or organizations require more frequent updates because business processes evolve or data grows faster. To remain relevant, disaster recovery plans must be an integral part of all business analysis processes and should be reviewed at every major corporate acquisition, every new product launch, and every milestone in new system development.

Your business does not remain the same; companies grow, change and realign. An effective disaster recovery plan should be regularly reviewed and updated to ensure it reflects the current state of the business and meets company goals. It should not only be reviewed, but tested to ensure it is a success if implemented.

When things go wrong, it’s important to have a solid, specific, and well-tested disaster recovery plan in place. Without a disaster recovery (DR) plan, your organization is at exceptional risk of business loss, hacking, cyberattacks, loss of sensitive data, and more.