What Are The Key Components Of An IT Disaster Recovery Plan?
Business Continuity | Disaster Recovery | IT Support
From natural disasters to cyber incidents, the unexpected can strike any business. Having a disaster recovery plan in place before disaster strikes can mean the difference between extended periods of downtime and a quick return to business as usual.
Not sure where to start? This article is for you.
I’m writing this article to explore the key components of an IT disaster recovery plan. And, even better, I promise to do that in nontechnical terms that any business leader can immediately implement.
I’ll explain the steps to take to develop your IT disaster recovery plan and what it should include.
In our 40 years of providing IT services to businesses of all sizes, we’ve seen what can happen without a comprehensive recovery plan. In that same time, technology has become an even more critical backbone for organizations of all sizes.
Having a disaster recovery plan is no longer optional, it’s essential. By putting in the planning time required to develop your action plan, you'll be prepared to respond quickly and effectively.
What Is IT Disaster Recovery?
IT disaster recovery involves more than just backing up your data. It’s about proactively ensuring your business can rebound from any type of interruption that affects your infrastructure and respond quickly to restore normal operation.
What Should An IT Disaster Recovery Plan Include?
IT disaster recovery plans should be comprehensive and forward-thinking. Here are some of the key elements that should be included:
1. Critical Systems
As a first step to putting together your IT disaster recovery plan, identify your “mission-critical” systems.
Understand which technology tools are essential for your business. What would happen if your most critical processes and applications were impacted by a disaster?
These systems could include servers, manufacturing equipment, your phone network, your virtual private network, devices, and more.
2. Risk Assessment
Conduct a thorough risk assessment and never assume that you have minimal or low level of risk. Be honest about your level of risk so that you can take appropriate precautions to protect your critical data and systems.
Just because you haven’t experienced a disaster yet, don’t get lulled into a false sense of security. Understanding potential threats will help you prioritize your disaster recovery efforts.
Related article: Conduct A Cybersecurity Risk Assessment For Your Business: 6 Steps
3. Business Continuity
What is the plan for keeping your business running during and after a disaster?
Spell out specific actions and identify people who will be responsible for them. This detailed action plan will ensure that essential functions can continue, appropriate stakeholders are identified, and downtime and impact on operations are minimized.
4. Data Backup & Recovery
Data backups are a key component to every IT disaster recovery plan.
It’s vital to know not only how frequently backups occur and where they are stored (remotely or in the Cloud is preferable), but also to practice accessing them, so that you know how to get to your most recent back up in the event of a disaster.
You don’t want to test your plan in the middle of a chaotic situation.
Taking this extra step will ensure that you are prepared and that your organization’s essential functions can resume quickly and efficiently.
Related article: Data Backups Are Key To Disaster Recovery
5. Test & Update
In addition to testing your data backup procedure, regularly run through your entire IT disaster recovery plan to ensure that everything is up-to-date and reflects the latest best practices.
Drills and simulations will help you identify weaknesses and ensure everyone knows their role before disaster strikes. With routine reviews, you have the opportunity to revise and update without being in a pressure situation.
Related article: Disaster-Proof Your Business IT: 6 Common Scenarios & How To Prepare
What’s The Bottom Line?
In this article, we’ve explored the importance of proactively planning for disaster.
We’ve talked about identifying your critical systems; honestly assessing your disaster risk; spelling out specific actions and identifying the appropriate people to take them; understanding frequency, location, and accessibility of data backups, and testing and updating your plan.
As a quick side note, the IT disaster recovery plan should be just one part of your organization’s overall comprehensive business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) plan
Whether the disaster is caused by something innocent (human error or pandemic), a deliberate malicious action (cybersecurity breach or sabotage), crises outside your control (political instability or power failure), natural event (weather or storm damage), or something else, the results can be equally damaging to your operations.
Preparation is the ultimate weapon against the unexpected. By investing in a robust disaster recovery plan today, you'll fortify your business against unforeseen challenges.
Want to know more about IT disaster recovery plans? Here are 10 steps to include in your comprehensive IT disaster recovery plan.
After reading this article, you may realize that you have the resources internally to support the development of your IT disaster recovery plan. That’s great!
If you are less sure about the ability of your internal team (or maybe don’t have one), you may want to consider exploring a partnership with an external IT support team.
For any organization considering outsourced IT support, the first thing I’d suggest is to compare several options. You want to make sure that you find a team that is the right fit for your business needs.
Before making a single recommendation, the external team should learn as much as possible about your business, your goals, and your current IT situation. How can they recommend solutions if they don’t understand your needs and experiences?
Ideally, it’s considered good practice to evaluate a handful of providers; enough that you understand your options, but not so many that you are overwhelmed.
Wondering what to ask when evaluating providers? Learn 10 of the best questions to ask any potential IT partner.
If you want to talk technology without the “tech talk” click the button below and one of our IT specialists will reach out to schedule a 15-minute lowkey telephone conversation to listen, learn, and see if it might make sense for us to work together. No pressure; just a conversation.
