In today’s world, there are two certainties every business must come to grips with. The first is that outages – whether due to human error, natural disasters, or something in between – are going to happen. The second certainty is your employees, contractors, partners, supply chains, and customers all expect that your business is available 24/7.
Thus, the importance of setting up a Disaster Recovery (DR) solution. But DR isn’t just about recovering data and servers; it’s about resuming business operations. In most cases, any kind of material disruption requires far more complex a response than simply running a restore job within your backup software.
Our ebook Disaster Recovery: Planning Ahead outlines which processes will help you build a proper technology DR plan, what should and should not be included, and the best steps to take to ensure you are securely positioned against threats to your corporate data. More below.
Defining the DR Planning Process
A DR plan is an agreement of how the business will act should a major disruption occur, so it’s necessary to take a few steps prior to beginning to build the DR plan. In our ebook, we outline the steps in depth.
Step 1: Get executive sponsorship
Step 2: Establish the DR team
Step 3: Have a plan to update the plan
Starting with Impact and Risk
When recovering from any kind of loss – regardless of whether it’s a loss of data, location, or something in-between – it’s important to not start with technology, but instead with the business. Without first assessing the impact and risk to business operations, it’s impossible to design a DR plan that appropriately mitigates these negative influences on business continuity. There are two best practices commonly held when considering building a formal DR plan, outlined in our ebook.
Building the DR Plan
A DR plan is more about the business than it is about steps related to technology. The DR plan is part documentation of how things are being done today to keep the business running, and part outlining the steps that need to be taken in the event of a business disruption to see the business (and not just a given bit of technology) back up and fully operational. In the ebook, we highlight each of the sections you should have as part of your DR plan, what should be included in each, and why.
Addressing DR Plan Gaps
Through the process of doing a business impact analysis and a risk assessment, along with building a DR plan, it’s likely you’re going to identify some gaps in IT’s ability to meet the determined needs of the organization. Whether it’s people, process, or technology, without the needed resources, recovery efforts won’t be successful. In this section of the ebook, we outline some of the more common gaps that may be raised during the planning process and high-level guidance on how to address them.
Curious to learn more about planning and steps to take in implementing a DR plan? Download our full ebook below.
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CyberFortress is a provider of Veeam-powered disaster recovery services for companies and enterprises of all sizes and compositions. Learn more about our managed disaster recovery powered by Veeam here.
