What Does Disaster Recovery Planning Involve?

Disaster Recovery Planning is a series of guidelines, plans and procedures to help the continuity or recovery of vital information, infrastructure and systems after a natural or man-made disaster. It provides an essential and strategic framework for the planning, management, recovery, and reuse of information systems, and other information resources in the aftermath of a disaster.

A disaster recovery plan is typically a comprehensive list of steps to take to ensure a successful recovery of information and infrastructure following any disaster, regardless of its severity. In most cases, the best course of action is to plan for recovery early on in the disaster’s aftermath. Many disasters are not necessarily catastrophic; in fact, many can be easily remedied with enough advance notice. However, some disasters may take longer to handle, requiring more extensive planning.

The basic elements of a disaster recovery planning process include preparing the infrastructure that will be used after a disaster, determining the number and type of users that will be needed, deciding how the data will be managed and stored, and defining what to do with any damaged data after it has been restored. In addition, a plan will likely involve assigning users access to data on an individual basis. This may involve having people sign on at specific times, logging into the system at certain times or keeping access to data for particular days or weeks at a time.

Disaster Recovery Planning

It is important to consider the types of disaster that may occur before developing a disaster recovery plan. For example, many people assume that they need to be prepared for fires in a building or a severe storm in the area. Unfortunately, even though severe weather does not necessarily mean that your data is unusable after it has occurred, you may still have to work with your disaster recovery company to make sure that your business can continue to operate after a storm.

When you have finished developing your disaster recovery plan, it is important to review it every year or so. You may find that you have forgotten certain steps or that certain steps no longer apply to your organization. You will also want to make sure that your plan is always updated to provide adequate protection and safety against future disasters. In addition, you should make it very easy for employees to access and change their passwords and other aspects of their password.

Finally, you should discuss with your disaster recovery planning professional all your options for data recovery, such as hiring a private IT company or doing it yourself. If you have an internal disaster recovery department, you may want to consider training them on how to perform certain tasks that may be necessary during your disaster recovery process. It is always better to be safe than sorry.

Leave a comment