Your business relies on information technology as a crucial component of your day-to-day operations. Data availability is of paramount importance which is why having a solid data recovery or business continuity plan in place is essential.
Disaster recovery planning can contain many different elements, each chosen based on the needs of the business involved however there are a few common considerations necessary to implement any successful disaster recovery and business continuity plan.
A business impact analysis
The aim of a business impact analysis (BIA) is to identify your businesses most critical systems and processes and how an outage would affect your operation. The BIA will help you establish which systems and process will cost you more if they were down and which need to be brought back online and in what order.
A contingency plan
Do your staff and senior management know the chain of command in disaster situations? Do you have a succession plan for your CEO? These are all vital questions that need to be addressed because they will help minimise and prevent any confusion in the event of a true emergency.
Conduct regular drills and tests
Performing regular data recovery drills ensures that more information can be recovered in the event of a real emergency. Testing your business continuity plan regularly will reveal any potential issues and changes you may need to accommodate.
A disaster recovery team of employees
Train additional employees to perform emergency tasks such as data recovery. Ensure that the responsibilities of your disaster recovery team are documented and that everyone knows exactly what they need to do in the event of an emergency.
Create a communication plan
You should have a clearly outlined communication strategy to inform your staff of your data recovery plan. Whether you communicate the details of your plan via emails or in-person meetings make sure that everyone know what the expectations are during an emergency, the timeline for disaster recovery and what they’re expected to tell clients and customers during this time.
