Disaster Recovery: Have a plan so you’re covered when disaster strikes

As a business you know that you use IT to quickly and effectively process information. Your employees use e-mail and Internet telephone systems to communicate. Servers process information and store large amounts of data. Desktop computers, laptops and wireless devices are used by employees to create, process, manage and communicate information. So what do you do when it all stops working or becomes unavailable?

The most common piece of information you’ll come across is that you’ll need a plan. A plan that you are familiar with, that you are ready to act upon in case the unthinkable happens, and a plan that will see you through the disaster to provide continuity for your business while ensuring your home and family are also protected.

A Disaster Recovery (DR) plan is a holistic strategy which includes your company’s people, processes, policies, and technologies. It focuses on restoring the IT systems critical to supporting the functions of your business.

An important thing to remember while creating your plan is that you are counting on your staff to implement these tasks, and the first priority for your team is always going to be their families and ensuring their safety.

This comprehensive documentation of well-planned actions can save your company time, money and a lot of frustration. These actions are documented so that you and your employees know exactly what needs to be done before, during and after a catastrophic event. In order to ensure business continuity during disasters, having an IT DR plan in place will help speed up when the actual disaster or emergency occurs.

The main objectives of a DR Plan should include:

• Minimising disruption of business operations
• Minimising risk of delays
• Ensuring a level of security
• Assuring reliable backup systems
• Aiding in restoration of operations with speed

As the master tool for your business, a DR plan is used to protect your infrastructure, determine organisational stability and provide systematic disaster recovery. You will need to find out:

• What are your critical factors? The things that need to be done regardless of whether or not the disaster has made this
• What is your recovery time? When will your data be available for use by staff?
• What is your process for getting your information all back up and running? How are you going to restore your data to your business?
• Can you test it or could this plan be used? Testing is a critical factor when creating your DR plan.

Developing your DR strategy can be quite a complex process – with the thorough analysis of your business from the existing network structure, applications, equipment and databases, through to your company setup, alternative premises, and all key components involved in your business. It will enable your business to minimise potential economic loss and disruption to operations in the face of disaster, while aiding in an organised recovery process, ensuring that your company’s assets are secure.

If you don’t have a DR strategy yet, we can help to create your own plan for your infrastructure. Our team can review your environment and propose a mix of resiliency tools that can help you achieve your recovery targets—all within your budget.

For assistance with developing your DR strategy, please contact our team.