What is a Disaster Recovery Plan? | Video

What would happen if a disruptive event meant you no longer have full access to your critical technology infrastructure or data? You need a Disaster Recovery Plan.

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Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity

While Business Continuity (BC) focuses on restoring and maintaining the whole of an organization’s operations, following a disruptive event… Disaster Recovery (DR) focuses on its technology systems and data.

See our video: ‘What is a Business Continuity Plan?’

A disaster recovery plan (DRP) is a formal document that describes how an organization can quickly resume work after an unplanned incident. Your disaster recovery plan is, therefore, the part of a business continuity plan (BCP) that deals with:

• Restoring IT and communications functions
• Resolving data loss

What Events Need a Disaster Recovery Plan?

Typical events can be:

• Data-center or building-wide
• Organizational
• City-wide
• Local
• Regional
• Even national or multi-national in scope

Causes of these commercial disasters could be, for example:

• Natural disasters
• Accidents and human error
• Terrorism or acts of war
• Cyber-crime

What can a Disaster Recovery Plan Do?

As a result, an effective disaster recovery plan can:

• Minimize disruption
• Contain commercial losses
• Reduce reputational impacts
• Avoid regulatory or legal breaches

Disaster Recovery Plan Framework

So, what needs to go into your Disaster Recovery plan?

Here’s our 6-point Disaster Recovery Plan Framework

1. Make a full inventory of your assets:
   1. Hardware
   2. Communications
   3. Software
   4. Data
2. Determine your minimum acceptable impacts, in terms of:
   1. Downtime
   2. Loss of service
3. Document your DR processes and procedures based on the services and tools you have developed or procured. These will include:
   1. Key SLAs and uptime guarantees
   2. Restoration priorities for data and functionality
   3. Back-up site and resources
   4. Data validation and reversion
   5. Code versioning
4. Set out DR responsibilities
   1. Operational
   2. Authorizational
   3. Fall-backs in cases where prime role-holders are not available
5. Craft a communications plan that covers:
   1. Internal
   2. Key stakeholders (inc regulators)
   3. External (reputation protection)
   4. Confidentiality and data security
6. Training and rehearsal program
   1. Informing people
   2. Training people
   3. Tests, simulations, and rehearsals
   4. Reviews and revisions to plan and procedures

Recommended Videos

Carefully curated video recommendations for you:

• What is Project Risk Management?
• Project Risk Management – How to Manage Project Risk
• What to Put in Your Risk Register (Risk Log)
• Risk Management – 5 Tips to do it right
• 4 Types of Project Risk – Different Forms of Uncertainty
• What is a Business Continuity Plan?

What Kit does a Project Manager Need?

I asked Project Managers in a couple of forums what material things you need to have, to do your job as a Project Manager. They responded magnificently. I compiled their answers into a Kit list. I added my own. 

Check out the Kit a Project Manager needs

Note that the links are affiliated.

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