An IT Disaster Recovery Plan:
How Important Is It For You?

Do you have an IT disaster recovery plan? If so, how would you deal with a storm that suddenly flooded your data center? What if that storm knocked out the power to your servers and you would likely be down for days?

How would you recover your data and keep the business running after such a disaster?

When disasters of these types hit unprepared companies, the consequences range from prolonged system down time to a severe loss of revenue which then puts the company out of business.

Did you know that for companies without a disaster recovery plan and who experienced a major loss of business data:

• 43% never reopened,
• 51% closed within two years,
• Only 6% usually survive long term?

How much of your IT budget is allocated to IT disaster recovery planning? The norm for large companies is between 2% and 4% with some being as high as 8%.

If you're a large business where IT infrastructure is very important to you and you're spending less than 2% of your IT budget, then you've definitely got some homework to do.

"Money Spent in Prevention is More Important
Than Money Spent in Recovery"

IT Project Outsourcing

If you're not that well prepared, this is a great opportunity to invest in the help of an IT outsourcing company that has specialists in disaster recovery planning and operations.

However, setting up a disaster recovery plan is really only one part of the larger picture, which involves developing up a business continuity plan.

Elsewhere in this website we talk about how to hire an outsourcer. Now we're going to highlight some of the important steps involved in setting up an effective IT disaster recovery plan.

1. Doing a Risk Analysis. List all possible risks that threaten your system uptime. Then determine which of these risks are more likely to occur and prioritize them in terms of probability and impact.
2. Preparing a Budget. For each of the risks identified in step 1 determine:
   1. What can be done to suppress the risk?
   2. How much would that cost?
   3. How do we reduce the potential of it happening?
   4. How do we minimize the impact on the business?
3. Presenting to Company Executives. This is where many IT departments fail because they do not present the real risks of system downtime to the executives. This is an important step because the executives need to make an informed decision as to the size of the disaster recovery budget.
4. Getting IT and Executives Agreement. It is imperative that both groups agree on which data and applications are the most critical to the business and therefore need to be recovered most quickly in a disaster.
5. Developing the Plan. The recovery procedures need to be written in detail. It is equally important to establish a recovery team of people, each of whom is assigned specific tasks, including who arranges for repairs, data recovery, sequence of recovery. Also included is a checklist and test procedure to confirm things are back to normal.
6. Testing the Plan. It is one thing to simulate the plan or conduct a walk-through of the procedures. The best way to ensure the procedures work is to actually test the whole process and test it regularly. This way you are sure all the pieces work. Record your test results and update the plan of any shortcomings.
7. Reexamining the Plan Annually. The business evolves, there are changes to systems, new applications, changes to data being backed up, additional servers, new people are hired etc.

Common Strategies And Misconceptions

Some IT managers believe that simply making tape backups of the data and sending it off-site at regular intervals is sufficient. Or that making backups to disk and having the disks stored off-site is sufficient.

Really? Ever tried to restore those tapes or disks and continue production?

What about backing up your applications, operating system, all or part of the database? Then restoring these to see if you really can be operational?

Ever run an impromptu disaster recovery drill? This is the one where in the middle of a regular business day, you gather all your staff and you tell them this: "Effective immediately, there is no access to the computer room and to any PCs in this office!"

You're now in a disaster situation, what do you do? Try it. You'll find such an exercise very enlightening. You'll discover:

• Who in your staff is thinking logically.
• Who are your true leaders.
• How valid and current your data backups are.
• If your current backup procedures are working for all systems and applications.
• How accurate and up-to-date your disaster recovery plan is, and oh, by the way, where exactly is it kept?

The Definition of Disaster Recovery

Want to learn more about disaster recovery:

• What it means?
• How it relates to the larger picture of business continuity planning?
• What are some of the security holes?
• Control measures in a recovery plan?
• Strategies?
• Useful Links?

To learn more, visit our "Definition Of Disaster Recovery" page.

Disaster Recovery Plan Example

Would you like to learn more about the components of a disaster recovery plan? What are some of the risks and how you should prepare to deal with them? Then visit our "Disaster Recovery Plan Example" page for details.

The Bottom Line

If you're new to disaster recovery, the best step forward is to hire an IT disaster recovery plan consultant. You can't afford not to.

Our offer of professional help is a serious one. First of all, you'll find that while the site information is exhaustive, it appears in a brief, easy-to-read, often bulleted, executive style.

You won't get bogged down in details while browsing this site, but we DO have extensive in-depth information for you if you want or need it. It's free and all you have to do is ask!

Start right now by going to the Contact Us page and completing the simple online form. You'll receive immediate access to two authoritative industry books, which our site sponsor will mail to you at no cost.

As a thank you for participating in our site, you'll also receive a bonus download of "15 Interview Questions To Ask IT Outsourcing Providers".

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