A Disaster Recovery Plan is exactly what it sounds like. In the event of a disaster, a plan is executed in order keep operations alive. DR plans are necessary in the event a disaster occurs to ensure a business is able to continue functioning. There are several steps in an effective DR plan. First is to create an inventory list. By having a detailed and up to date inventory list, you can account for specific types of disasters (power outages, fires, flooding, etc.) and what would be affected. Next is to establish a recovery timeline. Ideally, recovery is done as quickly as possible. However, depending on the industry, your recovery timeline has less flexibility. For example, if you’re a hospital, your tolerance for downtime is far less due to human life dependency. The next step is communication. Creation of policies and procedures will help define a clear understanding of who is responsible for what in the event of a disaster. This will help lessen the impact by removing confusion/chaos that would ensue if not previously established. Next is your back-up strategy. Choosing how your data will be backed up such as vendor managed, cloud storage, or internal off-site. As well as what kind of off-site facilities (cold, warm, or hot) fit the needs of your business. Coupled with catastrophic insurance to help off-set the cost of replacing assets. Lastly, frequent testing of the DR Plan. Even as children we practiced fire drills, tornado drills, active shooter drills, By practicing these events, it makes it less about a theory on paper and more about establishing muscle memory. It’s also important to practice to identify any issues or gaps that exist. Remediating potential issues or gaps in your DR plan is essential in ensuring it’s success when the time arises.
I like your example you used for tolerance of downtime with hospitals. This is something extremely important to take into consideration depending on what industry you are in and if the downtime could impact human life. Additionally, you included the plan for children in schools and the various drills they do, which is a great point that I didn’t think of. I also agree with the steps of the DR plan you included in your explanation.
A disaster recovery plan is vital to a company’s infrastructure in case of emergencies. It details the procedures that help identify, address, and deal with disasters while maintaining the least amount of impact on the business. Some of the most important aspects of a disaster recovery plan include an inventory of key assets, critical information backed up, determining maximum downtime and recovery time and recovery point, etc. All of these are put in place to ensure a cost-effective resume to work after an unplanned disaster.
Hi Matthew,
I like how you included that a disaster recovery plan should contain an inventory of key assets and critical information backed up. I would also include that the document itself should contain information about the process of recovery and a plan outlining how to recover from potential disasters.
Hey Matthew,
Great post, I think it is also important to highlight that the plan needs to be rehearsed in order to work out any problems and give employees an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the procedures. A disaster plan is only as good as the employees are at executing it.
A disaster recovery plan is a documented strategy that outlines the steps that need to be taken to recover from a crisis, disaster, or other unplanned incident/emergency with minimal impact to the operations of the business. This document includes the procedures, has roles and responsibilities clearly defined (such as who is part of the incident response team), timeframes for recovery and or certain tasks, back-up information, and communication plan (for internal and external parties). Disaster recovery plans should also be practiced to ensure everyone is aware of and knows how to execute their responsibilitiey. This is the time to iron out any errors and make adjustments to the plan as needed, prior to a real life event.
A disaster recover plan is critial to an organization as technology is embedded within most if not all of an organization’s operational processes. Every minute of downtime costs an organization money. In my organization we have a local function that acts as a central service provide of information to our entire organization. The memorandum of understanding that exists, specifically identifies the need for a disaster recovery plan to provide assurances to the other stakeholders that place reliance on the availability of this information in order to make critical business decisions.
Great job on your post, very well put. As you highlighted, a DRP is critical. I would hate to think of what would occur if a business failed to establish a DRP. For small companies, they would probably be forced out of business as operations would halt and revenue along with it. Larger companies with multiple locations depending on their business model may be able to leverage those sister sites in the interim in the event something goes wrong but not without consequence.
A disaster recovery plan is a procedure that a company will follow given a disaster or other such crisis ensuring the continued operation of the business. The plan will outline who is in charge, who is assigned to/ responsible for what, an inventory of assets, a critical information backup plan, and the communication plan. It’s important to work out any flaws in the recovery plan prior to an actual crisis, so these plans need to be practiced routinely. It is incredibly important for a company to continue its operation despite the crisis, downtime in turn costs the company money. The recovery plan offers an efficient, therefore cost-effective, way to go about handling whichever disaster has hit the company.
Hi Maxwell,
To add to what you said regarding handling recovery depending on the disaster, the disaster recovery plan should outline specific recovery procedures depending on the type of disaster affecting an organization. Natural, man-made, and technology disasters should all be accounted for within the plan.
I thought your explanation was perfect. It is crucial to include assigned roles/responsibilities to ensure no confusion is had during the event of a crisis. Smooth transition is so important so that no data is lost in the event of a disaster. In fact, I wish I had mentioned in my own response how important it is that this procedure be practiced by the company multiple times to ensure thoroughness and effectiveness. Fantastic response!
A disaster recovery plan is a documented plan that is to be put in place in the instance of a disaster that can keep the company’s operations running if followed. If there was no plan in place in the instance of a disaster and a company wasn’t able to resume operations timely, the business/company could fail and have to cease operations. The disaster recovery plan should identify critical business activities and critical information and should be ranked in order of criticality. The plan should also be tested regularly (i.e. annually or when there is a major change like server site change) to ensure all aspects need to continue operations are included in the plan. The plan needs to be communicated to the necessary members of management involved in the plan including backups, with each functional area having a designated team lead.
Hi Jill,
I like your inclusion of testing the plan regularly. Having a disaster recovery plan that is outdated or untested is not helpful for when an organization needs to utilize the plan in case of a disaster. I think tests involving the disaster recovery plan would include tabletop exercises or scenario testing, what would you do for testing a disaster recovery plan?
A disaster recovery plan is a formally documented plan that outlines how to restore business operations and minimize the effects of a disaster. These plans should enable rapid recovery from a disaster and outline how to recover parts of the business process should a disaster occur. These disasters include natural disasters, attacks from others such as cyber threats, and minor disasters such as a loss of power due to a power line. The plan itself should outline specific details of the recovery process, such as outlining how data should be stored on/off-site and how often data backups should occur. Another example of what the plan should include is the details of how to quickly recover critical business processes in the event of a major disaster.
Hello Kenneth!
I totally agree with you, DRP is very critical to every organization. Most of these incidences may be caused by natural disasters and it is extremely difficult to prepare for it. However, if you have a disaster recovery plan in place, you have a better chance of protecting your organization from a severe loss. The plan is there and it details what steps must be taken in case these incidences.
A disaster recovery plan is a documented, structured approach that describes how an organization can quickly resume work after an unplanned incident or emergency. It is a cornerstone for every organization as it is an essential part of a business continuity plan. Also, it is key to the organization, because it puts them in a better position to resolve data loss and recovery system functionality in order to continue the service in the aftermath of an incident, even if it operates at a minimal level.
A disaster recovery plan is what to do next in case of risk or threat. An individual will know what to do when presented with the risk or threat that they can potentially face. The both quantitive and qualitative are going to be considered in the plan. It is important to keep a plan in place because the business had to know what there is come in which their reputation and earnings would be on the line. In order to understand the likelihood and impact we must have a plan to keep hardware, physical or virtual configured accordingly. When disasters happen there will be confusion and not knowing what to do, in such cases we must prepare and brace ourselves to of what to do. For example, this is why we used to have fire drills at school or a lockdown. This plan would help us stay clear and help navigate properly to try to manage the event that is already taking place.
Hi Parmita ,
I agree with you a disaster recovery plan will help individuals to know the next point of action when faced with risk, threat or an attack
A disaster recovery plan is written plan for processing critical applications in the event of a major hardware or software failure or destruction of facilities. it is needed because it contains detailed instructions on how to respond to unplanned incidents such as natural disasters, power outages, cyber-attacks and any other disruptive events. The plan contains strategies on minimizing the effects of a disaster, so an organization will continue to operate or quickly resume key operations.
Hello Abayomi,
It’s an excellent point that the plan contains strategies to minimize downtime due to the disaster not just fix the problem. When it comes to unplanned events there will obviously never be a way to avoid all problems, but it’s important to have plans in place to mitigate their damage when they do come up.
What is a disaster recovery plan? Why is it needed?
A disaster recovery plan, as the name suggests, is a plan to return a site or business unit to operation after a disaster. The disaster is most commonly a natural disaster such as fire or flood, but it could also be man made- a power outage, a truck hits the building-, or even an extreme malware incident such as ransomware. The DRP addresses what the critical systems and operations are, how to restore those to minimal functionality and eventually full functionality, who the key individuals are that can make emergency decisions and what powers are granted to them in the event of an emergency. The DRP will lay out redundancies and contingencies to replace downed systems.
The DRP is needed because it is very important to plan for the worst case so that you can know the business will survive a disaster and be able to estimate time and effort to return to normal operations. The worst time to figure out how to replace a critical system is when it is on fire or under water. A well crafted plan will take a worst case scenario from devastating and business ruining to unpleasant but survivable.
A DRP is a critical custom document that must be regularly reviewed, updated, and tested. The best path to recovery is different from site to site. Critical systems and personnel change regularly.
A disaster recovery plan is a methodical strategy outlining how a company may go back to work following an interruption in operations. A DRP tries to assist a business address data leakage and regaining the functionality of the software so that it can serve in the circumstances of an event, even if it runs at a low level(Abualkishik et al 2020). A disaster recovery plan comprises a set of procedures designed to keep a business running, or get it back up and running as rapidly as possible, after an emergency.
As an added bonus, DRPs provide a transparent path to recovery, which is essential for meeting regulatory obligations.
A Disaster Recovery Plan is exactly what it sounds like. In the event of a disaster, a plan is executed in order keep operations alive. DR plans are necessary in the event a disaster occurs to ensure a business is able to continue functioning. There are several steps in an effective DR plan. First is to create an inventory list. By having a detailed and up to date inventory list, you can account for specific types of disasters (power outages, fires, flooding, etc.) and what would be affected. Next is to establish a recovery timeline. Ideally, recovery is done as quickly as possible. However, depending on the industry, your recovery timeline has less flexibility. For example, if you’re a hospital, your tolerance for downtime is far less due to human life dependency. The next step is communication. Creation of policies and procedures will help define a clear understanding of who is responsible for what in the event of a disaster. This will help lessen the impact by removing confusion/chaos that would ensue if not previously established. Next is your back-up strategy. Choosing how your data will be backed up such as vendor managed, cloud storage, or internal off-site. As well as what kind of off-site facilities (cold, warm, or hot) fit the needs of your business. Coupled with catastrophic insurance to help off-set the cost of replacing assets. Lastly, frequent testing of the DR Plan. Even as children we practiced fire drills, tornado drills, active shooter drills, By practicing these events, it makes it less about a theory on paper and more about establishing muscle memory. It’s also important to practice to identify any issues or gaps that exist. Remediating potential issues or gaps in your DR plan is essential in ensuring it’s success when the time arises.
I like your example you used for tolerance of downtime with hospitals. This is something extremely important to take into consideration depending on what industry you are in and if the downtime could impact human life. Additionally, you included the plan for children in schools and the various drills they do, which is a great point that I didn’t think of. I also agree with the steps of the DR plan you included in your explanation.
A disaster recovery plan is vital to a company’s infrastructure in case of emergencies. It details the procedures that help identify, address, and deal with disasters while maintaining the least amount of impact on the business. Some of the most important aspects of a disaster recovery plan include an inventory of key assets, critical information backed up, determining maximum downtime and recovery time and recovery point, etc. All of these are put in place to ensure a cost-effective resume to work after an unplanned disaster.
Hi Matthew,
I like how you included that a disaster recovery plan should contain an inventory of key assets and critical information backed up. I would also include that the document itself should contain information about the process of recovery and a plan outlining how to recover from potential disasters.
Hey Matthew,
Great post, I think it is also important to highlight that the plan needs to be rehearsed in order to work out any problems and give employees an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the procedures. A disaster plan is only as good as the employees are at executing it.
A disaster recovery plan is a documented strategy that outlines the steps that need to be taken to recover from a crisis, disaster, or other unplanned incident/emergency with minimal impact to the operations of the business. This document includes the procedures, has roles and responsibilities clearly defined (such as who is part of the incident response team), timeframes for recovery and or certain tasks, back-up information, and communication plan (for internal and external parties). Disaster recovery plans should also be practiced to ensure everyone is aware of and knows how to execute their responsibilitiey. This is the time to iron out any errors and make adjustments to the plan as needed, prior to a real life event.
A disaster recover plan is critial to an organization as technology is embedded within most if not all of an organization’s operational processes. Every minute of downtime costs an organization money. In my organization we have a local function that acts as a central service provide of information to our entire organization. The memorandum of understanding that exists, specifically identifies the need for a disaster recovery plan to provide assurances to the other stakeholders that place reliance on the availability of this information in order to make critical business decisions.
Hey Christa,
Great job on your post, very well put. As you highlighted, a DRP is critical. I would hate to think of what would occur if a business failed to establish a DRP. For small companies, they would probably be forced out of business as operations would halt and revenue along with it. Larger companies with multiple locations depending on their business model may be able to leverage those sister sites in the interim in the event something goes wrong but not without consequence.
A disaster recovery plan is a procedure that a company will follow given a disaster or other such crisis ensuring the continued operation of the business. The plan will outline who is in charge, who is assigned to/ responsible for what, an inventory of assets, a critical information backup plan, and the communication plan. It’s important to work out any flaws in the recovery plan prior to an actual crisis, so these plans need to be practiced routinely. It is incredibly important for a company to continue its operation despite the crisis, downtime in turn costs the company money. The recovery plan offers an efficient, therefore cost-effective, way to go about handling whichever disaster has hit the company.
Hi Maxwell,
To add to what you said regarding handling recovery depending on the disaster, the disaster recovery plan should outline specific recovery procedures depending on the type of disaster affecting an organization. Natural, man-made, and technology disasters should all be accounted for within the plan.
Hey Max,
I thought your explanation was perfect. It is crucial to include assigned roles/responsibilities to ensure no confusion is had during the event of a crisis. Smooth transition is so important so that no data is lost in the event of a disaster. In fact, I wish I had mentioned in my own response how important it is that this procedure be practiced by the company multiple times to ensure thoroughness and effectiveness. Fantastic response!
A disaster recovery plan is a documented plan that is to be put in place in the instance of a disaster that can keep the company’s operations running if followed. If there was no plan in place in the instance of a disaster and a company wasn’t able to resume operations timely, the business/company could fail and have to cease operations. The disaster recovery plan should identify critical business activities and critical information and should be ranked in order of criticality. The plan should also be tested regularly (i.e. annually or when there is a major change like server site change) to ensure all aspects need to continue operations are included in the plan. The plan needs to be communicated to the necessary members of management involved in the plan including backups, with each functional area having a designated team lead.
Hi Jill,
I like your inclusion of testing the plan regularly. Having a disaster recovery plan that is outdated or untested is not helpful for when an organization needs to utilize the plan in case of a disaster. I think tests involving the disaster recovery plan would include tabletop exercises or scenario testing, what would you do for testing a disaster recovery plan?
A disaster recovery plan is a formally documented plan that outlines how to restore business operations and minimize the effects of a disaster. These plans should enable rapid recovery from a disaster and outline how to recover parts of the business process should a disaster occur. These disasters include natural disasters, attacks from others such as cyber threats, and minor disasters such as a loss of power due to a power line. The plan itself should outline specific details of the recovery process, such as outlining how data should be stored on/off-site and how often data backups should occur. Another example of what the plan should include is the details of how to quickly recover critical business processes in the event of a major disaster.
Hello Kenneth!
I totally agree with you, DRP is very critical to every organization. Most of these incidences may be caused by natural disasters and it is extremely difficult to prepare for it. However, if you have a disaster recovery plan in place, you have a better chance of protecting your organization from a severe loss. The plan is there and it details what steps must be taken in case these incidences.
A disaster recovery plan is a documented, structured approach that describes how an organization can quickly resume work after an unplanned incident or emergency. It is a cornerstone for every organization as it is an essential part of a business continuity plan. Also, it is key to the organization, because it puts them in a better position to resolve data loss and recovery system functionality in order to continue the service in the aftermath of an incident, even if it operates at a minimal level.
A disaster recovery plan is what to do next in case of risk or threat. An individual will know what to do when presented with the risk or threat that they can potentially face. The both quantitive and qualitative are going to be considered in the plan. It is important to keep a plan in place because the business had to know what there is come in which their reputation and earnings would be on the line. In order to understand the likelihood and impact we must have a plan to keep hardware, physical or virtual configured accordingly. When disasters happen there will be confusion and not knowing what to do, in such cases we must prepare and brace ourselves to of what to do. For example, this is why we used to have fire drills at school or a lockdown. This plan would help us stay clear and help navigate properly to try to manage the event that is already taking place.
Hi Parmita ,
I agree with you a disaster recovery plan will help individuals to know the next point of action when faced with risk, threat or an attack
A disaster recovery plan is written plan for processing critical applications in the event of a major hardware or software failure or destruction of facilities. it is needed because it contains detailed instructions on how to respond to unplanned incidents such as natural disasters, power outages, cyber-attacks and any other disruptive events. The plan contains strategies on minimizing the effects of a disaster, so an organization will continue to operate or quickly resume key operations.
Hello Abayomi,
It’s an excellent point that the plan contains strategies to minimize downtime due to the disaster not just fix the problem. When it comes to unplanned events there will obviously never be a way to avoid all problems, but it’s important to have plans in place to mitigate their damage when they do come up.
What is a disaster recovery plan? Why is it needed?
A disaster recovery plan, as the name suggests, is a plan to return a site or business unit to operation after a disaster. The disaster is most commonly a natural disaster such as fire or flood, but it could also be man made- a power outage, a truck hits the building-, or even an extreme malware incident such as ransomware. The DRP addresses what the critical systems and operations are, how to restore those to minimal functionality and eventually full functionality, who the key individuals are that can make emergency decisions and what powers are granted to them in the event of an emergency. The DRP will lay out redundancies and contingencies to replace downed systems.
The DRP is needed because it is very important to plan for the worst case so that you can know the business will survive a disaster and be able to estimate time and effort to return to normal operations. The worst time to figure out how to replace a critical system is when it is on fire or under water. A well crafted plan will take a worst case scenario from devastating and business ruining to unpleasant but survivable.
A DRP is a critical custom document that must be regularly reviewed, updated, and tested. The best path to recovery is different from site to site. Critical systems and personnel change regularly.
Disaster Recovery Plan
A disaster recovery plan is a methodical strategy outlining how a company may go back to work following an interruption in operations. A DRP tries to assist a business address data leakage and regaining the functionality of the software so that it can serve in the circumstances of an event, even if it runs at a low level(Abualkishik et al 2020). A disaster recovery plan comprises a set of procedures designed to keep a business running, or get it back up and running as rapidly as possible, after an emergency.
As an added bonus, DRPs provide a transparent path to recovery, which is essential for meeting regulatory obligations.