Disaster Recovery Planning
It has been estimated that, of companies that suffered a major loss of business data, 43% never reopen, 51% close within 2 years and only 6% survive long term. Don’t wait for a disaster to occur before implementing a disaster recovery plan (DRP).
A disaster recovery plan is a piece of a much larger process called business continuity planning. DRP is the plan, process and policies that relate to running technology infrastructure that is critical to an organization in the event of a disaster would could include natural disasters (floods, fires, earthquakes…) or man made disasters such as sabotage, walkouts, burglary, viruses, hardware failures and even human error.
The first step is to identify key components and boundaries of your DRP plan. A business impact analysis will determine what falls inside and outside of your plan. For example: what would the business impact be if you lost 3 months worth of accounting data because of a hard drive crash? What would the business impact be if a laptop computer was stolen? What would happen if your only IT resource were hit by a bus?
Every organization has unique circumstances, needs and resources. Monitor Your Assets will create an actionable plan and make it happen. This can include:
- Centralizing data storage.
- Implementing local backups.
- Implementing offsite backups.
- Implementing remote monitoring solutions that can call your phone or email you in the event of an environment change such as temperature or power.
- Implementing redundant systems.
- Implementing fault tolerant subsystems such as RAID arrays.
- Implementing an antivirus solution for your home or office.
- Implementing redundant Internet connectivity.
- Implementing Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) which filters power sags, brownouts, spikes and complete outages allowing for a safe system shutdown.
- Implementing and regularly testing security systems such as firewalls.
- Regularly review and test implemented measures.
Most organizations tend to take DRP seriously only *after* a disaster strikes. Don’t make the same mistake!