Disaster Recovery Planning
We’ll help you plan, design, and deploy solutions that prevent disasters from putting you out of business
What is disaster recovery planning?
Disaster recovery planning is the process of making a formal plan for how to recover from an cyberattack or other disruptive event. The idea is that even in the face of serious disruption, you can respond quickly and get back to normal. It should include specific steps that should be taken.
Disaster recovery strategy
The key to great disaster recovery planning is to have a recovery strategy that helps you quickly stop a disaster in progress such as a cyberattack, and also maintain as much business continuity as possible. You need to assess how to restore hardware, applications, and data quickly enough to keep operating. You also need to identify the risks of different types of breaches. If you keep client data that can be compromised, you should also have a communication plan in place.
Disaster Recovery Plan Steps
When creating a disaster recovery plan, we generally include these steps:
- Identify any weaknesses that can be used to harm your company’s assets. Minimize those weaknesses by training your staff about preventing cyberattacks, and put in place software that can minimize vulnerability (think of things like strong email filters, antivirus software, etc.)
- Look at potential consequences. There are financial implications for a HIPAA data breach, for example, but there are other potential consequences such as damage to your IT environment, legal fees, and PR costs.
- Prioritize the risks based on the potential costs and how vulnerable/likely to occur it is.
- Put in place monitoring systems to find small indicators of problems.
- Put in place extensive data backup protocols and VM replication strategies.
Do I need an IT disaster recovery plan?
Yes. If you use technology to communicate or operate your business, there is always a risk of an equipment failure or a cyberattack. Data loss or corruption from hardware failure, human error, hacking, or malware is a very real risk, and you will feel much safer and in control if you already have a plan in place for data backup and restoration.
