There are a tremendous number of details involved in Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning (DR / BCP). For many organizations, it can be difficult to know where to start or how prepared they truly are. This blog stays high level and is intended to spark some ideas as you assess your organization’s current state of readiness.
For those of us in Florida, hurricane season is a regular reminder of how quickly disruptions can occur. Hurricane season runs from June 1 through November 30 each year, and preparation during this time is critical. Whether it is a hurricane, severe weather, power outages, or other unexpected events, having a plan in place can make a significant difference.
As a former Chief Technology Officer in the financial industry, I approached disaster planning much like any large initiative. There is a logical flow to what needs to happen, timelines to consider, and roles and responsibilities that must be clearly defined. While we might hope our plans cover every possible scenario, the reality is that disruptions rarely follow a script. A solid plan, combined with clear communication, becomes essential during these events.
Tip: Successful DR / BCP planning requires representation from key business functions when assessing critical systems and operations. While one person may coordinate the effort, a strong plan requires input from across the organization.
A comprehensive plan typically focuses on four areas: preventative measures, emergency response, restoration, and recovery.
Preventative Measures
Preventative measures are the elements organizations can control ahead of time. While we cannot control when disasters occur, we can control how prepared our infrastructure and teams are.
Examples include:
• Redundant data centers or cloud infrastructure
• Data backup and recovery solutions
• Employee evacuation and safety procedures
• An established DR / BCP response team
• A documented disaster recovery plan
It is important to understand which applications are most critical to the business, where key data resides, and how long the organization can operate without access to those systems.
Many organizations have little tolerance for outages, but the architecture of their IT environment does not always align with that expectation. Ensuring alignment between business requirements and technical capabilities is an important part of planning.
Tip: Be sure to understand Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO).
RPO refers to how much data loss the business can tolerate.
RTO refers to how long a system or application can be unavailable before it impacts the business.
These metrics help guide backup strategies and recovery planning.
Emergency Response
The emergency response portion of a DR / BCP plan outlines the steps taken during a hurricane or other disaster while ensuring employee safety remains the top priority.
Key elements may include:
• When to declare an emergency
• When to fail over to backup systems or facilities
• Guidelines for travel and when it should be avoided
• Communication procedures across phone, email, messaging platforms, and web based tools
Clear communication and defined leadership are critical when responding to unexpected events.
Restoration
Restoration efforts may begin during the event itself. Backup systems may be activated or workloads may fail over to alternate infrastructure.
Once the immediate threat has passed, restoration focuses on bringing critical systems back online. This may include restoring network access, voice services, and application infrastructure from backup data so the organization can continue operating.
Recovery
Recovery efforts typically would start with an assessment of damages that may have occurred. If significant damages took place, those items would have to be replaced and once the production environment was ready, there would be the effort to move services back from the DR location. With Cloud and Hybrid options, the systems, applications, and data may have already sat in data centers with GEO redundancy and never skipped a beat. You might just be assessing locations where your employees operate.
Here at Greyson Technologies, we collaborate with our clients to ensure that the IT infrastructure in place will meet the DR/BCP requirements from their business. Interested in learning more about how we can help you? Contact us today.
