disaster recovery and business continuity

Disaster recovery tends to fall more on the shoulders of IT teams and their partners, as these plans typically cover the technical aspects that need to be restored in the event of a disaster. For example, following a flood, fire, power outage or cyberattack on a company’s data center or other data storage solutions, IT teams need to be able to turn to a backup or have some other way to quickly recover from this disaster. Strong disaster recovery plans define the IT assets (hardware and software), data and resources required to get the technical aspects of a business back to normal as soon as possible, whether that’s due to a cyberattack or physical incident. These plans leverage different technologies to support data and system backups and recovery options, such as replicating information across different data centers or via the cloud.

Because business continuity plans cover the full breadth of operations, they require input and buy-in from all areas of the business, rather than falling squarely on IT’s shoulders.

Strong plans include an analysis of business requirements, risks and processes to define mission-critical applications, data and functional areas so they know what to focus on. From this assessment, the plan should outline key factors such as:

• The definition of a disaster.
• A communications plan for handling a disaster.
• The time required for access to systems and data.
• How to prioritize areas for recovery.
• Identifying location(s) for teams to work following a disaster.
• Key resources needed to address disasters.