A business – no matter how big or small – will have to prepare for any kind of unexpected event. Anyone in the business world understands that the unforeseen is a potential risk. When it comes to the digital side, or the tangible side of things, there will always be instances that do not go as part of the initial plan.
If a company has solid contingencies, a business continuity plan, and a disaster recovery plan, then they’re going to be in a much better place to deal with what is around the corner. Here, we’re going to discuss the preparation for quick disaster recovery as well as some of the points around this.
The Difference Between Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
Firstly, we’ll quickly distinguish between business continuity and disaster recovery. There are differences, but some companies like to merge them into one sole plan. Business continuity is a structured and documented strategy that is designed to help business owners and employees prepare for an event that may disrupt things.
Natural disasters, floods, fires, outages, and countless other examples are involved here; disaster recovery is all about resuming business operations quickly, and is applied to the planning of an organization’s applications and overall infrastructure.
Why Is Disaster Recovery So Essential?
It’s essential to have with you a disaster recovery plan due to the fact that you’ll want to do all you can to prevent severe loss of data and vital information.
Finances, customer confidence, and the reputation of the business overall can all be damaged if things go south. With a solid structure in place to deal with disasters, a business can continue seemingly as not much of an impediment was in the way.
What Is Typically Included In a Disaster Recovery Plan
A good disaster recovery plan will include a planning team, goals, action plans, written documentation, the training of everyone involved, and goals. Here, we’ll go into a little more detail regarding them.
Firstly, a planning team will be established that consists of each area of the business. This is where the likes of IT consulting can be utilized, as an MSP has experience with setting up DRPs. They’ll be able to discuss how everything should be in place and detail how their particular area needs to be covered.
They’ll then discuss who is responsible for executing the plan. A leader will need to be chosen. In many cases, the entire company will be responsible, but a leader will also provide a more secure, steady product.
Goals and objectives will be defined during the production of a DRP. There will be plenty of questions that need to be answered, so it’s a case of leaving no stone unturned. Action plans should be created specifically for each kind of disaster that may come apparent.
List the procedures of a fire, flood, earthquake, etc. as it’s important to have a detailed idea of how to deal with each exclusively.
Written documentation and training days are important. If you have an article you can easily reference, it makes the entire ordeal easier to handle before, during, and after.
Outline who is responsible, the likelihood of it happening, objectives, the impact, and the follow-up steps necessary. In terms of training, it by no means needs to be rigorous, but it should be detailed enough while still easy to comprehend.
