When a natural disaster or other unforeseen calamity threatens the security of your business, it is critical that you have a disaster recovery plan in place. This plan should provide the necessary steps and resources to ensure that your business can get back on track following a disaster. Read on to discover what should be included in a disaster recovery plan.
What is a Disaster Recovery Plan?
A Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) is a comprehensive document that outlines the processes and procedures for responding to and recovering from a disaster or other major threat. The DRP is designed to help an organization plan for the worst-case scenario and prepare for the eventuality of a disaster or disruption of services.
Recovery Time Objectives
Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) are essential for establishing the amount of time it should take to recover from a disaster. RTOs provide a target goal for restoring systems and services to their normal functioning state after a disruption. It also provides an indication of the amount of risk a business is willing to accept when it comes to disasters.
It needs to be established for all critical systems and services, and for each of those systems and services, the RTO should be set according to the organization’s specific business needs. For instance, a company’s financial system may need to be restored within two hours of a disaster, while a customer service system may only need to be restored within four hours.
Recovery Point Objectives
The Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) is the maximum amount of data loss that an organization is willing to accept during a disaster. It is used to determine the frequency and type of backups that will be performed in order to ensure that the organization can recover from a disaster with the least amount of data loss possible.
RPOs are used to determine how often backups should be made, as well as the type of backups that should be created. For example, if an organization’s RPO is one hour, then backups should be made at least once an hour. If the RPO is one day, then backups should be made at least once a day.
In addition to determining the frequency of backups, an RPO is also used to determine the type of backups that will be performed. For example, if an organization’s RPO is one hour, then the organization should use incremental backups, which save only the data that has changed since the last backup. On the other hand, if the RPO is one day, then the organization should use full backups, which save all the data from the last backup.
IT Inventory
IT inventory should be included in a DRP because it helps ensure that all of the necessary information technology assets are accounted for, even after a disaster has occurred. It helps identify which hardware, software, and services are currently in use, as well as their configurations and locations. This information is critical to the recovery process because it helps the organization identify what needs to be replaced and what may be able to remain in place.
Additionally, it is essential to ensure the proper functioning of an organization’s systems after a disaster. Without an up-to-date inventory, it’s difficult to determine if the necessary hardware and software components are available, or if they need to be replaced. If the components aren’t available, the organization may not be able to properly recover and restore its IT systems.
Furthermore, it can help organizations determine which systems are most critical to their operations, and prioritize them for recovery. Knowing which systems are most important to the organization’s operations can help ensure that the most critical applications and services are recovered first, and the less important systems are recovered last. This is important to ensure that the organization is able to quickly and effectively return to normal operations after a disaster.
Having a comprehensive disaster recovery plan in place can help businesses prepare for and respond quickly to disasters. It’s important to take the time to create a plan that accounts for every potential disaster scenario, so that your business is always prepared. For assistance creating your disaster recovery plan, get in touch with MooIT Solutions for their experienced and trusted services.
