What is a Disaster?

Unplanned interruption of normal business process resulting from the interruption of the IT infrastructure components used to support them.

What is Disaster recovery Plan?

A Disaster Recovery Plan covers the data, hardware and software critical for business to restart operations in the event of a natural or human caused disaster. It should also include plans for coping with unexpected or sudden loss of key personnel.

Why Disaster Recovery Planning?

• Most organizations rely heavily on their computer systems and communication networks

• An organization’s desire to protect and preserve its positive public image

• An organization’s physical assets

• The lives of the organization’s employees

• High level of customer satisfaction

Disaster Recovery Planning Process:

Disaster Recovery Planning Team

The first initial stage is organizing the disaster recovery planning team; the team must be a well-rounded group that represents all the functions of an organization.

Risk Assessment

This step involves determining the critically of processes, applications and systems by conducting business impact analysis to assessing risks and determining the potential economic loss that could occur as a result of those risks. In this stage first; all business process must be identified and analyzed, Second; the planning team should review legal and contractual requirements to determine the consequences of business disruption

Disaster Recovery Planning roles and stakeholders

The third step is establishing the roles that each department, business partner, and outside service organization plays in disaster recovery. The planning team determines the contribution that each department can make to the plan and disaster recovery.

Recovery strategies and Disaster Recovery Planning Polices

Disaster recovery policies are the guidelines that govern the development of disaster recovery procedures. These procedures are step-by step methods designed to restore an organizational function or business process.

Disaster Recovery Planning Documentation

The fifth step of disaster recovery plan is to document the policies and procedures developed in previous step.

Implementing Disaster Recovery Planning

During this step the final plan is distributed to the entire department, organizations and employees involved in disaster response and recovery.

Disaster Recovery Planning Testing

A disaster recovery testing is a live simulation in which all departments and support organizations run through the entire disaster recovery process, just as they would during an actual disaster.

Disaster Recovery Planning Maintenance

Once the plan is developed and tested, the planning team must continually

• Assess the emergence of new threats

• Adjust for changes in organizational structure

• Determine the impact of new technology on recovery procedures

• Monitor changes in laws and regulations that may affect the disaster recovery requirement