Disaster Recovery Plan

Disaster Recovery Planning

"Disaster recovery planning consists of a set of activities aimed at reducing the likely hood and limiting the impact of disaster events on critical business processes" Togio (2000).

The disaster recovery plan, which should address various levels of response to a number of possible disasters and should provide for partial or complete recovery of all data, application software, network components, and physical facilities.

The recovery plan should have specific goals for different types of disasters. For example, if the main database server was destroyed, how long should it take the organization to have the software and data back in operation by using the backups? or, if the main data center was completely destroyed, how long should it take to get back to normal working procedures.

Criteria Used to select a Disaster Recovery Plan

The choice of a disaster recovery plan will be based upon costs of the extra provision vs.

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A sample of a (blank) SCA recovery plan document

the potential cost of disaster. Factors which will be taken into account include:

·The scale of the organization and its IT systems;

·The nature of the operation: an online system may need to be restored within hours whereas a customer billing operation may not be harmed until a few days, so long as no data is lost;

·The relative costs of different options: a company with several sites linked by telecommunication may be able to formulate a disaster recovery plan which temporarily moves operation to an alternative site, but need not involve a cold site or hot site provided by a third party;

·The perceived likelihood of disaster occurring: companies in earthquake zone around San Francisco, for example are likely to invest more in a disaster recovery service than an average firm in Wales.

Objectives of a Disaster Recovery Plan

Before creating a disaster recovery plan...