Disaster Recovery Business Continuity for Remote Offices - Data
residing outside the data center at remote and branch offices (ROBOs) accounts
for a significant portion of an enterprise's information store, yet it often
either is protected with inefficient backup processes or is not protected at all
-- leaving companies at risk on many fronts.
In a recent
research report, high priority projects for ROBOs included improving information
security measures; ensuring compliance with government, industry or corporate
governance mandates; and improving Disaster Recovery Business
Continuity processes.
- more info
DRP and Security Plans key to compliance - Preparing for a disaster requires detailed planning,
preparation and testing. Knowing what IT assets need to be recovered, where to
recover them and how to recover them are the essence of IT Disaster Recovery. The
most difficult challenge is mapping the prioritized business requirements to the
IT assets so that recovery can be staged. The recovery strategy then evolves
based on the available options which support the required recovery objectives.
The resulting Disaster Recovery plans contain all of the information detailing
where to go, who is to do what and the information required to rebuild servers,
restore applications and data as well as restart and synchronization
procedures. - more info
DRP Template - 
If you are new to recovery planning, make sure that you research the subject
thoroughly before embarking on a disaster recovery project. Consider engaging a
consultant (internal or external to your organization) to help you in your
project planning effort. Disaster recovery planning
is not a two-month project, neither is it a project that once completed, you
can forget about. An effective recovery plan is a live recovery plan. The plan
must be maintained current and tested/exercised regularly.
The primary objective of a Business Resumption Plan is
to enable an organization to survive a disaster and to reestablish normal
business operations. In order to survive, the organization must assure that
critical operations can resume normal processing within a reasonable time frame.
Therefore, the goals of the Business Resumption Plan should be to:
- Identify weaknesses and implement a disaster prevention program;
- minimize the duration of a serious disruption to business operations;
- facilitate effective co-ordination of recovery tasks; and
- reduce the complexity of the recovery effort.
- more info
Why is diaster and business continuity planning important - Federal, State and Local Governments are chartered to mitigate and control
the event, provide life and safety measures, and then restore
infrastructures. The Red Cross provides emergency relief in the form of
food, health and shelter. If insured, an insurance company will settle
damage claims and provide monetary relief. However, none of these
organizations will, or can, recover your business. Your companys
recovery is strictly up to you, and it commences with a solid business continuity/disaster recovery plan.
Should your company experience a disaster, the first 72 hours following the
incident will be the most critical in your recovery efforts. How you respond
during that period will determine if your business will survive or not.
Furthermore, the most important hour is the one immediately following the event.
If ever required, your Business continuity plan will enable you to respond in a
systematic and organized fashion. It will guide your organization, step-by-step,
from responding to the actual event all the way through to full occupancy of
your repaired facility.
- more info
Simple Disaster Planning Activities - Creating a disaster recovery
plan is a complex task; however there are a number of basic steps that
you can follow to start thre process
- Prepare your systems, processes, and people for an organized
response to disaster when it strikes.
- Identify critical IT systems and develop a long-range
strategy.
- Select and train your disaster recovery team.
- Conduct a Business Impact Analysis.
- Determine risks to your business from natural or human-made
causes.
- Get management support.
- Create appropriate plan documents.
- Test your plan.
- more info
