What Does Disaster Recovery Planning Imply

Disaster recovery planning is that small thing that nobody thinks about but after it is too late – I mean, we have the example of the hurricane Katrina. Most people realized how useful a disaster recovery planning would have been if they would have considered it before the actual disaster, and not afterwards. Disaster recovery planning is not only for edgy situations such as the one previously mentioned – disaster recovery planning is designed for any type of crisis situation – when you have no communication with the world anymore, when your network has been erased, when your backups have been damaged and so on. You see, depending on the time it takes you to recover from a crisis, you can predict your response to different types of disastrous effects. In other words, the faster your recover, the easier it will be for you to ensure business continuity and profit.

The first thing you have to have and hand in case of a disaster is a disaster recovery plan which cannot be done in the absence of disaster recovery planning (obviously!). Disaster recovery planning implies a variety of steps designed to solve the problem in the most efficient manner (with the least amounts of steps, time and effort). Disaster recovery planning is the ideal way of coping with an emergency situation, however, how do you know exactly what you should include in the plan? The checklist below mentions a number of useful elements you might want to take into consideration in your disaster recovery planning.

Business Analysis – At this point you should be able to realize what makes your company going – what is its engine. In other words, in case of an emergency, what is the first thing that you need for everything not to fall apart. For example, if you are a tech support company, the first thing you need to protect is customer files, and phone line to be in contact with your customers. Analyze how much time it will take until your computers will be up and running with the necessary data will be available and realize what you can do to speed up the process.

Risk analysis – You should always have a back up plan in case something happens to a important part of your business – for example, if a part of the business collapses, can you compensate in any way for that? Are those offices the only place where you were doing a certain thing? Can you temporarily move them? This is just a small example of what you should think of, since you know better what your business deals with.

Recovery Team – Numerous businesses that considered the advantages of recovery business planning has spoken with a company that provides recovery services. If you prefer this option, make sure you know exactly who will be taken care of what part of your affected business. If you prefer to do everything on your own, make sure you designate crisis teams that know exactly what to do and what are they in charge of.

This is just a short list of the most important things that should be discussed when considering disaster recovery planning. The details should be set based on your business’ needs.