1. Assign Roles and Responsibilities – Document and clearly define roles and responsibilities. Consider all areas of your business. Refresh and recommunicate regularly. PRO TIP: Don’t forget to designate who will establish and communicate roles and responsibilities.
2. Plan for Crisis Communications – Crises invite panic, so you must have a communications plan to alert key stakeholders, such as employees, customers, suppliers, partners, media, and regulatory bodies. PRO TIP: Make sure your plan assumes that some communications channels may be down.
3. Set Up Emergency Work Protocols – Do you need alternate physical space? A generator? Supplies? Services (telephone, internet, etc.)? PRO TIP: Be sure security protocols are in place to protect your employees and your data should you need to work remotely immediately (and indefinitely).
4. Target Time and Point for Data Recovery – Determine your recovery time and recovery point objectives (RTOs and RPOs) to ensure your plan meets minimum business requirements. PRO TIP: Knowing downtime costs is critical to setting RTO and RPO.
5. Generate a Recovery Checklist — Enterprise systems are tightly integrated. Develop a checklist to restore systems in order of priority and interdependency. PRO TIP: Systems may crash if you bring them back online in the wrong order.
6. Maintain Working Backup and Replication – Back up your data regularly and ensure backups are working as expected and data is easily accessible. PRO TIP: If you rely on manual backups, consider Backup as a Service (BaaS) for a cost-effective update.
7. Test DR Plans – Testing your DR process in addition to your data backup and restoration plans is vital to ensure that they’ll work when you need them. PRO TIP: Schedule DR testing so it’s not overlooked.
8. Back Up Data Backups – Backups can be as vulnerable to disaster or attack as your production data and systems. Include backups in your data protection strategy. PRO TIP: Best practice is to have three copies of your data on two different media with one stored offsite.
9. Prioritize Data Protection – Encrypt data in transit and at rest. PRO TIP: Replicated data must be safeguarded so that even those with admin privileges are unable to modify or delete it.
10. Shore Up Network Resources – Lack of network access can hinder targeted recovery times. Be sure to assess the availability and security of alternate networks. PRO TIP: Private networks present viable options for many businesses.
11. Deploy Failover Systems – Failover systems are vital DR and business continuity components. PRO TIP: A managed failover solution like SD-WAN from a reliable provider can ensure that your failover works when needed.
12. Comply with Regulations – Understand the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) so your backup and recovery strategies are in compliance. PRO TIP: Some data – like financial or health information – is regulated no matter where it sits.
13. Choose the Right Recovery Method – Restoring systems and data at the right time and in the right order is essential to ensuring the fastest-possible recovery. Make sure you know exactly what data has been affected before you start the recovery process. PRO TIP: Evaluate the benefits of a fully managed Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) solution.
DR planning is essential to limiting downtime and minimizing costs when disaster strikes. Your DR plan should cover several scenarios so you’re prepared regardless of the type of disaster or the systems that are affected.
