Many businesses IT Infrastructure is ill prepared for a natural disaster. In fact, few companies are able to answer basic questions about how they would handle a natural disaster that affected servers, networks and workstations. Do you know how your company would recover offsite data after a natural disaster? Would confidential information on servers be compromised? Does your company have service level agreements in place with vendors that provide disaster recover solutions? As many as seven out of ten companies cannot answer these simple questions.Unfortunately, many businesses do not realize how important having a Disaster Recovery Plan is, until it is too late. Every company should have a plan for handling IT demands following a natural disaster. Here are some thoughts on developing a plan for your company.
Selecting a Consultant to Work With
When developing a plan, few companies have the resources in house to create a comprehensive Disaster Recovery Plan. Most businesses must outsource the work to a Disaster Recovery Consultant in the IT field. This consultant should work with your business to create a customized Disaster Recovery Plan. Every businesses needs are different, and a Consultant should be willing to invest the time to develop a plan that is tailored to both your specific industry and company.
Components of a Disaster Recovery Plan
Although every company will have unique needs, there are a few components that should be part of every Disaster Recovery Plan. The exact implementation of these may vary, but all of the following should be in place:
- Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Software that lets you create, maintain and execute (if necessary) the Disaster Recovery Plan
- A root cause recovery analyses that determines what Infrastructure was affected by the disaster
- A solution that follows the entire lifecycle of a business and includes all its data
- A means of quickly accessing offsite data, if backups are kept at another location
- Tiered protection of data, so confidential information is not compromised in a disaster
- Regular backup & duplication, so the backup files are not outdated
- Matching onsite and offsite infrastructure, to enable a quick recovery
- Mobile or remote access, to ensure business continuity while the Infrastructure is repaired
A well-crafted Disaster Recovery Plan for a business IT Infrastructure will protect information and return the business to normal operations as quickly as possible. It will ensure business continuity at every tier and in every part of a business immediately following a disaster. Taking the time to develop a plan today could save your company in a disaster tomorrow. There are many things businesses must overcome in a disaster, and having a Disaster Recovery Plan in place for the IT Infrastructure will alleviate one source of distress.