Disaster Recovery to the Rescue
A Backup Article Contributed by Melissa Larose
Disaster Recovery to the Rescue
Disaster Recovery has become a very important part of our culture. It doesn't just pertain to recovery of dwellings and utility infrastructure. It can also refer to recovery of business processes, data, and equipment. These are areas of disaster recovery the Red Cross won't be able to assist you with.
Planning for a Disaster Recovery Rescue
Why is it the human race refuses to believe that disaster can never strike them personally? Somehow we all believe we are invincible. Maybe because we are creatures of experience, we have to have it happen to use before we will believe it. That is a dire point of view hen it comes to a business venture.
Business ventures usually provide income for a group of people. Business ventures usually affect more than one group of people. When a local industry fails due to lack of disaster recovery the failure affects those businesses that industry serviced as well.
Why would you invest all the time, money, and effort in creating and growing your business and not have a disaster recovery plan in place? It is an important question and one that every viable business should answer.
Creating a Disaster Recovery Plan
Where would you start in creating a disaster recovery plan? Remember it is what will make or break your business should a disaster occur. This should be a workable plan with no shortcuts. Shortcuts will mean further disaster.
Start with an assessment of what you have. Is there critical data that would need to be recovered? Is there equipment that you can't do without? Are their clients that will need to be reassured? What will you have to replace immediately in order to continue functioning? More than likely it won't need to be everything but if so, address that issue. So the first order of the plan is to assess risk or threat and in order to do that you must assess your business.
Secondly assign those risks or threats with a level of probability. What are the most likely disaster recovery scenarios? Draw your disaster plan from those that are most likely. If flooding is a high likelihood in your area then plan for it. Make sure you are covered both through insurance and in practical ways (i.e. servers and file cabinets should never sit directly on the floor).
Some other threats to consider might be : electrical outages, utility outages, equipment failure, A/C or heating failure, employee sabotage, or loss of data.
Disaster Recovery Reminder
Know what your plan is. No how it was created and why. Make sure everyone involved in the company knows what the plan is. This will involve reviewing the disaster recovery plan on a yearly basis. The only constant in life is change and company's change. Personnel leave and new personnel comes aboard. The names of contact on that disaster recovery plan can change. If no one reviews the plan and a key contact person has left you could be in serious trouble when the time comes to respond. If it means running drills then it means running drills.
