Miscellaneous

How to Create a Disaster Recovery Plan

An IT disaster recovery (DR) plan is a business action plan implemented in a worst-case scenario disaster.

If the worst happens and you are unable to operate your business from its usual location or through your network, an effective disaster recovery plan will allow you to continue to meet the needs of your customers.

Does My Company Need a Disaster Recovery Plan?

In short, yes. It isn’t a case of if it is when a disaster occurs via any number of reasons, including your cyber defenses being breached or a natural disaster that damages your equipment. A disaster recovery plan created with a cybersecurity company can help you to recover what is lost and get back on your feet regardless of what happens.

If you have a disaster recovery plan in place with a cybersecurity company, in the event of a ransomware attack, you can restore the encrypted data from the backup instead of having to pay a ransom fee for its safe return.

What Does a Disaster Recovery Plan Involve?

Most effective disaster recovery plans include;

  • Remote backup: this is an essential part of your disaster recovery plan. Having your backup stored in a secondary location can prevent you from losing all data in the event of a flood, fire, natural disaster, etc.
  • Accountability chart: who is responsible for the disaster recovery plan and can assist with an efficient recovery and enforcement of the plan. This can be discussed with your cybersecurity company, too, in the event of a cyberattack.
  • Recovery point objectives: This estimate of how much data may be lost during the recovery process. The frequency of data backups is adjusted to control this.
  • Recovery time objectives: This is a rough estimate of how long it will take for normal operations to resume after a catastrophic event. Faster RTOs usually necessitate more resources than slower ones.
  • Testing: who is responsible for testing the disaster recovery plan, and how often are you testing this plan to ensure it runs smoothly should you need to enact it?

Important Details Concerning Your Disaster Recovery Plan

What is critical to your business, and what does your “normal” look like?

Once you know how things should be running, it is easier to reinstate them after a disaster. Create an inventory of all your IT resources and look at the data each resource holds so you can consolidate them to be reinstalled when needed.

Chances are, you do not need all the data you hold every single working day. What is critical to your business is simply what you need at a bare minimum to get back up and running again. To identify what you do, you need to help you with an efficient disaster recovery process.

Who has access, and what role do they play?

Having more than one person responsible for the disaster recovery efforts means you can call don’t their collective skills to ensure you are up and running methodically. Make sure everyone knows what their roles are in different circumstances. You include your cybersecurity company in these plans to help you recover lost data in the event of a cyber breach.

A solid disaster recovery plan will have many working components that need to work together to ensure minimal disruption in a variety of different situations. Finding a remote data storage facility, having backups of your backups, and regular training on what your protocols are and those involved in the recovery process are up to speed with their responsibilities will help you recover faster in an emergency.