Elements of Disaster Recover Plans

As enterprises rely more on advanced technology as well as electronic data for prominent day-to-day operations, the significant amount of data that can be lost with disasters appears to be abundantly increasing. Ventures are approximated to lose high revenue and may incur increased expenses due to disasters every year. It further leads to unpreparedness, degraded business performance, and loss of productivity. Thus, it becomes highly essential to prevent disaster occurrence to the possible extent and additionally be prepared with foremost recovery plans. Take measures for dealing with the after-effects of disaster through considering IT disaster recovery planning.

The best way to deal with disaster is by creating and implementing DRP or disaster recovery plan. The DRP must be capable enough to tackle every type of disaster regardless of the extent of the damage. Therefore, it is highly essential to keep disaster recovery plans easy to follow, highly understandable and flexible to cope with varying needs. Let’s go through the general elements that must be present in DRP for effective recovery:

Create a Disaster Recovery Team:

The responsibility of the recovery team is to develop, implement and maintain the DRP. A disaster recovery plan must identify the team members and depict the distinct responsibilities of each member. Additionally, it should contain the details of the person to be contacted in the event of a disaster. All the teammates must be informed about the disaster and responsibilities as soon as possible for dealing with the situation in minimal time.

Identify & Assess Disaster Risks:

The dedicated disaster recovery team must be able to identify and assess the associated risks of the organization. This phase comprises natural disasters, certain man-made emergencies, and related incidents. The disaster recovery plan will assist the members of the team in the identification of the recovery strategies in addition to resources. The DRP should be predetermined and must be able to offer a reliable solution in an acceptable timeframe.

Determine the Required Applications, Documents & Resources:

Initially, the enterprise has to carry forward an evaluation process to figure out the critical business operations. The DR plan should highly focus on short-term survivability, including cash flows as well as revenues. Short-term plans are more effective than long-term plans as they help restore the venture’s full functioning power. However, the enterprise must recognize the procedures that should never be delayed, such as payroll processing.

Backup and Off-site Storage Process:

This process helps in identifying the data that must be backed up and the time frame of backup. The personnel responsible for performing backups, location, weekly/monthly backups, everything must be present in the DRP. You have to make sure that the crucial applications, IT equipment, and critical documents are periodically backed up. Never skip backing financial statements, income tax returns, employee lists, contact info, inventory records, and vendor listings.

Test and Maintain the DRP:

Having a disaster recovery plan is not enough; you have to make sure it works appropriately. Always perform an initial check to know how efficiently it works, and it is highly important to maintain DRP. Also, if required, upgrade the plan as per changing infrastructure and resources.

In summary, an enterprise must develop a DR team for creating, maintaining, implementing a disaster recovery plan. Recovery plans help to resume organizational work in minimal time after a failure. The concerned person must update, test and maintain DRP as per changing basics.