Disaster Recovery

Disasters arrive unannounced, which is why it is important to get an IT DR plan in place as soon as possible. A fully functioning plan will help you minimize risk exposure, reduce disruption, and ensure economic stability. It will also reduce insurance premiums and potential liability, and ensure your organization complies with regulatory requirements. Most importantly, a well-executed plan can save your organization thousands – even hundreds of thousands – of dollars in the event of a disaster.

To determine how much a disaster can cost your organization, consider the cost of system downtime – the impact on employee productivity, the loss of billable hours, missed sales from a down e-commerce website, penalties for failure to meet regulatory compliance obligations. Data is a valuable asset: Customer data; financial, human resource, and R&D documents; and emails are all irreplaceable. Each document represents hours of work and the ability to retrieve it is essential. In a worst-case scenario, your disaster recovery plan may save your company.

 Every business needs a disaster recovery plan that is as unique as its data requirements. To define the best approach for your business, you must weigh the value of your data, systems, and applications against the risk your organization can afford to assume. When you create a disaster recovery plan, be sure to include the following steps:

• Establish a planning group.
• Perform a risk assessment and define acceptable Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) and Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs).
• Prepare an inventory of IT assets.
• Identify dependencies and establish priorities.
• Develop recovery strategies.
• Develop a communication plan.
• Develop documentation, verification criteria, procedures, and responsibilities.
• Test, test, test the plan.
• Implement the plan.
• Maintain the IT infrastructure.