Wednesday, January 22, 2014

What It Takes In Disaster Recovery Planning

By Judy Sullivan


Survival and continued operations in any organization largely depends on the level to which the management is aware of potential risks facing the organization and their ability to come up with a plan that is capable of minimizing losses and returning operations to normal level within the shortest time period. Disaster recovery planning is a continuous process that aims at establishing a step by step action plan to be followed before, during and after a tragedy.

It requires involvement of all members of the organization at all levels from top to bottom. In addition to this, it is also necessary that all aspects of organization are put into consideration. This include internal processes, procedures, systems, machines and all other resources and external players like suppliers, government and other regulatory authorities. The aim is to come up with a fully tested and functional plan in a formal document.

In addition to minimizing loss and ensuring quickest possible recovery in case of a disaster, this plan also ensures that standby systems are serviceable and reliable, reducing needs for decision making in chaotic situations by making sure that course of action is well understood by all those who are involved. It also reduces the insurance premium rates as insurance companies are more comfortable with comprehensive and functional disaster recovery plans (DRP).

Every enterprise has a unique plan that may not be suitable for the other business. It depends on many factors from the business type and environment, processes and machinery, level of security measures in place and the level of technology. Although many organizations prefer to prepare their own plans, they can also be bought in software applications. Services of consultants from outside the organizations can also be secured in designing appropriate plan.

A typical DRP involves several stages. It starts from understanding of the interconnections of all organization resources and activities followed by assessment of its vulnerability areas. After getting the insight on how organization can get affected in case of a disaster, a short term plan is developed. This will assist in developing a longer term recovery plan, prioritizing all areas of vulnerability. The planning is continuously tested and updated to respond to changing needs of the business.

The DRP has become a necessity in all industries and is a requirement by law in some firms due to several reasons. Many firms primarily depend on computer networks and electronic systems which are prone to failure. In addition to this, dealing with accidents in a proper manner reduces insurance claims. For this reason, insurance firms normally charger lower premiums for firms with better DRP.

The last steps involve organizing and documenting the whole plan in form of a guide which is the presented to the top management for approval. The process is never complete before testing and evaluated to ensure it is functional. The feasibility and compatibility of facilities set aside for backup facilities. The testing to go through includes checklist, simulation, parallel and the full interruption.

The disaster recovery planning process involves much more than just coming up with storage and backups. It should be able to address all critical areas of risk exposures in the organization. If well done, this plan will prevent many risks from occurring, other than just minimizing their impacts.




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