Essential Steps for Disaster Recovery

by IT Executives Council | Sep 5, 2024 | Disaster Recovery

Businesses must be prepared for risks. They must create a risk management plan that minimizes risks, prevents disasters, and provides disaster recovery if the worst occurs. A disaster recovery plan is necessary for businesses because it reduces costs, minimizes downtime, maintains business continuity, and ensures compliance.

The Components of a Disaster Recovery Strategy

Failover/Failback: Failover involves moving operations to a secondary system when the primary one fails. Failback is the process of returning to the original system when it is safe to do so. If executed properly, this strategy should be seamless, resulting in minimal disruptions.
Recovery Time Objectives (RTO): RTO is the time it takes for companies to recover after a disaster. Businesses should aim to make RTO as short as possible.
Recovery Point Objective (RPO): The RPO is the amount of data a business can lose while maintaining its operational ability. Some businesses constantly copy data to ensure everything is recovered. Others know they can lose minutes or even hours’ worth of data and recover what was lost during downtime.
Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS): The growing awareness of disasters and their implications has led many companies to hire DRaaS services. These third-party organizations host a recovery infrastructure and provide a response plan to ensure businesses recover quickly. Global Market Insights shows considerable growth in the DRaaS industry.

Creating a Recovery Strategy

Now that you know the components of a recovery strategy, you can tailor them to your company’s needs. Disaster recovery plans will vary depending on your industry and the type of disaster you are dealing with, but they should follow some basic guidelines.

Conduct a Business Impact Analysis (BIA)

A BIA is an assessment of potential threats to your company and their possible outcomes. It examines how the threats can impact various aspects of your business, including your reputation, worker safety, profitability, compliance, downtime, and other critical factors.

Perform a Risk Analysis

A risk analysis looks at two main factors: the likelihood of a disaster and how it will impact your business. It requires a combination of qualitative and quantitative risk analysis.

Qualitative risk analysis uses a person’s judgment to determine risk. It is quick and subjective. Quantitative risk analysis is based on data and requires a deeper dive into risks and outcomes.

Create Asset Inventory

Companies should inventory their assets to determine how they will be affected by disasters. Then, they must devise strategies to protect those assets.

Assets can be divided into three categories as follows:

Critical assets are required for everyday business.
Essential assets are used at least once daily and can lead to downtime if disrupted.
Unimportant assets are used infrequently and are not vital to operations.

Once assets are categorized, businesses can determine which to prioritize in a disaster.

Roles and Responsibilities

Companies must prepare their teams so they know what to do when a disaster occurs. Part of the preparation includes assigning roles to various employees so they can take the lead in an emergency. Roles may include:

Incident Reporter: This person is in charge of communicating with stakeholders, so they know the disaster and what’s being done to address it. They should continue communicating with stakeholders throughout recovery to protect the business’s reputation and promote transparency.
Disaster Recovery Plan Manager: This individual communicates with teams to ensure the recovery plan is executed correctly.
Asset Manager: An asset manager will secure and protect assets during disasters. They should continue communicating with teams so they are aware of how assets are handled.

Test and Refine

A disaster strategy should be revisited often to ensure it meets the needs of a growing company and an evolving industry. It must also be updated to ensure the protection of newly acquired assets and consider new compliance laws that may be relevant to business.

Companies should test their plan regularly through accurate simulations. Tests should be comprehensive and include everything from immediate reactions to the processes used to get systems up and running. Companies should identify and address possible issues promptly to ensure they are ready for the worst.

Want to learn how to protect your company from risks and disasters? Sign up for our newsletter today.