How To Create A Free Disaster Recovery Plan
From a fire that rages out of control to major hurricanes and flooding, disasters have the uncanny ability to happen when you least expect it. Creating a free disaster recovery plan internally, rather than hiring and paying a consultant, serves to minimize the negative consequences resulting from such acts caused by both man and nature. If your company is unprepared, you may experience extended downtime resulting in loss of revenues from which the business may not recover. The key to survival centers on a well-planned strategy for business continuity. This includes an established set of policies and procedures for responding to and recovering from disasters.
Instructions
1.Conduct a risk analysis as the first step in determining your disaster recovery plan. A risk analysis consists of ascertaining all the possible risk exposures to your business. This could include computer virus attacks and hackers, power outages, earthquakes, fire or flooding--to name a few. Determine the likelihood of each risk occurrence and prioritize them. You should rank each risk by categories of probability and impact, then subcategories of high, medium or low.
2.Develop a budget by determining what you can do to minimize your risks and then figuring the costs to do so. This includes figuring out how to detect a threat before it occurs, minimize the potential for the risk to occur, and minimizing the business impact when a risk does occur. A back-up generator, mitigating downtime and allowing your business to continue operations, for example, could offset a power outage. This will involve an upfront cost, but if your business location is subject to frequent interruptions of power, this cost may be minimal compared to the costs associated with prolonged downtime. A good place to begin is to determine the costs of potential downtime for a risk scenario and then ascertain how much downtime you can tolerate before the downtime is cost-prohibitive.
3.Develop the disaster recovery plan by coordinating results from all departments to ascertain how quickly the business needs to be up and running after a disaster. For example, if you determine that in order for a business to remain viable, it must be up and running within 24 hours, you will need to prepare a plan that executes and accomplishes that goal. The plan will need to outline each member's responsibilities in the recovery, determine the priorities for recovery, incorporate all communication procedures, include a checklist to test everything once the business is up and running, and verify that all systems and processes are functioning adequately.
4.Test your disaster recovery plan on a consistent basis. It is one thing to establish a disaster recovery plan, but implementing it in an emergency is a different ballgame. This involves a walk through with all recovery teams for each risk scenario, covering each aspect of recovery and tweaking the disaster recovery plan where deficiencies are present.
5.Revisit your disaster recovery plan annually in response to business changes in order to maintain relevance. Determine if budgets are still appropriate, if all parts of the plan still apply, if the business added departments or assets that require incorporation and consider any new personnel that may need training.
Instructions
1.Conduct a risk analysis as the first step in determining your disaster recovery plan. A risk analysis consists of ascertaining all the possible risk exposures to your business. This could include computer virus attacks and hackers, power outages, earthquakes, fire or flooding--to name a few. Determine the likelihood of each risk occurrence and prioritize them. You should rank each risk by categories of probability and impact, then subcategories of high, medium or low.
2.Develop a budget by determining what you can do to minimize your risks and then figuring the costs to do so. This includes figuring out how to detect a threat before it occurs, minimize the potential for the risk to occur, and minimizing the business impact when a risk does occur. A back-up generator, mitigating downtime and allowing your business to continue operations, for example, could offset a power outage. This will involve an upfront cost, but if your business location is subject to frequent interruptions of power, this cost may be minimal compared to the costs associated with prolonged downtime. A good place to begin is to determine the costs of potential downtime for a risk scenario and then ascertain how much downtime you can tolerate before the downtime is cost-prohibitive.
3.Develop the disaster recovery plan by coordinating results from all departments to ascertain how quickly the business needs to be up and running after a disaster. For example, if you determine that in order for a business to remain viable, it must be up and running within 24 hours, you will need to prepare a plan that executes and accomplishes that goal. The plan will need to outline each member's responsibilities in the recovery, determine the priorities for recovery, incorporate all communication procedures, include a checklist to test everything once the business is up and running, and verify that all systems and processes are functioning adequately.
4.Test your disaster recovery plan on a consistent basis. It is one thing to establish a disaster recovery plan, but implementing it in an emergency is a different ballgame. This involves a walk through with all recovery teams for each risk scenario, covering each aspect of recovery and tweaking the disaster recovery plan where deficiencies are present.
5.Revisit your disaster recovery plan annually in response to business changes in order to maintain relevance. Determine if budgets are still appropriate, if all parts of the plan still apply, if the business added departments or assets that require incorporation and consider any new personnel that may need training.
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