How to Create a Disaster Recovery Plan that will Work for Your Organization
Backup & Disaster Recovery
Previously, we saw the seven components of a disaster recovery plan. In this article, we are going to discuss how to create a disaster recovery plan for your organization. A DRP provides a structured approach to help you prevent, prepare for, and mitigate disruption to your business.
Both natural and man-made disasters can affect your organization. Floods, earthquakes, and landslides are a few natural disasters. We can classify fire accidents, ransomware attacks or power outages as man-made disasters.
DRP helps protects your employees, customers, and assets. It reduces downtime and financial losses. With a proper DRP, your business can withstand a crisis and resume operations as soon as possible.
Steps to Create an Efficient Disaster Recovery Plan:
Lacking a disaster recovery plan is something your organization cannot afford, and there’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to creating one. Today, we'll outline what steps you need to take to create an effective disaster recovery strategy and provide you with more peace of mind.
- Auditing your existing resources:
Identifying or auditing existing resources will help you identify what software or systems you’ve been using so far.
This step also includes identifying the infrastructure and personnel that are currently available.
Ask the staff how it would affect their work if specific systems or networks were down for a while.
It helps you identify any gaps or weaknesses in the existing resources that could impact the effectiveness of your disaster recovery planning.
- Identifying critical operations:
Determining critical operations is an important step in the disaster recovery planning. It helps you identify processes and functions that are essential to keep your business running.
To determine critical operations of your organization, you have to conduct a Business Impact Analysis (BIA). BIA will help you address any vulnerabilities in your company’s operations.
After determining the vulnerabilities, you can look for dependencies between the critical operations and other functions.
Once you identify the critical operations and their dependencies, you can develop strategies to respond effectively to a disaster.
- Determine the RTO and RPO of your organization:
A disaster recovery plan (DRP) must include the Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO).
In the case of a disruption, they make sure that crucial systems and data can be restored swiftly and effectively. RPO and RTO are both measured in hours or minutes.
The RTO outlines how rapidly a company should bounce back from a disaster. Based on the importance and effect of the systems and services on business operations, they need to be restored first.
The maximum amount of data loss that an organization can accept during a disruption is known as the RPO. It details how often data should be backed up as well as how soon those backups must be recovered in the event of a disruption.
- Backup and recovery:
Based on the RTO and RPO, you can choose appropriate backup and recovery methods such as disk-to-disk backups, replication, or cloud-based disaster recovery services.
A copy of the DRP and other essential supplies needed for daily operations should be kept off-site.
- Documentation:
It provides a comprehensive and detailed guide for responding to disruptions and restoring critical systems and data.
Here are a few key components that have to be documented:
- Contact information of the key personnel like the disaster recovery team, IT staff, and other relevant stakeholders, along with their roles and responsibilities.
- A comprehensive assessment of the risks and potential impact of various types of disruptions, including natural disasters, cyberattacks, and other threats.
- A detailed inventory of critical systems and data, along with their location, dependencies, and recovery priorities.
- A step-by-step guide for responding to disruptions and restoring critical systems and data.
- Detailed instructions for communicating with key stakeholders during a disruption, including employees, customers, and partners.
- Testing and Validation:
The goal of testing and validating the DRP is to find any flaws or gaps and fill them.
It ensures that the DRP is still effective and relevant and provides an opportunity for companies to spot and address issues before they arise.
Additionally, they guarantee that key personnel are aware of their responsibilities and roles in a disaster and act accordingly.
Conclusion:
A comprehensive strategy and the input of all key stakeholders will assist you in forming an effective disaster recovery plan. With clearly defined recovery objectives, proper backup and recovery systems, specific recovery procedures, and communication protocols, your company is prepared to respond to any disaster. Keep in mind that creating a disaster recovery strategy is an ongoing effort that should be regularly reviewed and updated.