What Is a Disaster Recovery Plan?A disaster recovery plan defines instructions that standardize how a particular organization responds to disruptive events, such as cyber attacks, natural disasters, and power outages. A disruptive event may result in loss of brand authority, loss of customer trust, or financial loss. Show
The plan is a formal document that specifies how to minimize the effects of disaster scenarios, and help the organization minimize damage and restore operations quickly. To ensure effectiveness, organize your plan by the location and the type of disaster, and provide simple step by step instructions that stakeholders can easily implement. Disaster recovery plan examples can be very useful when developing your own disaster recovery plan. We collected several examples of plans created by leading organizations, and a checklist of items that are essential to include in your new plan. 4 Great Disaster Recovery Plan ExamplesEach of these examples is also a template you can use to develop a disaster recovery plan for your organization. For more background on how to build a plan from scratch, read our guide to disaster recovery plans 1. IBM’s Disaster Recovery PlanCreated by: IBM
Go to template 2. The Council on FoundationsCreated
by: The Council on Foundations
Download .PDF template 3. Evolve IPCreated by: Evolve IP
Go to template 4. Micro FocusCreated by: Micro Focus
Download .PDF template 10 Things You Must Include in Your Disaster Recovery Plan Checklist1. Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO)A disaster recovery plan must make it clear what are your organization’s:
2. Hardware and Software InventoryFor a plan to be effective, you must have a comprehensive, up-to-date inventory of your IT assets. Categorize them into the following categories:
Ensure that your disaster recovery plan addresses all critical assets, and as many as possible of the important and unimportant assets, in that order. 3. Identify Personnel RolesThe plan should define who in the organization is responsible for disaster recovery processes, with their names and contact details. Critical responsibilities include:
4. List of Disaster Recovery SitesA disaster recovery plan must specify where the company’s assets are located, and where each group of assets will be moved if a disaster occurs. There are three types of sites:
6. Disaster Response ProceduresA key element of a disaster recovery plan is a documented procedure for responding to a catastrophic event. The first few hours of an event are critical, and staff should know exactly what to do to minimize damage to organizational systems, and recover systems to resume normal operations. A DR procedure should include clear action steps, in simple and unambiguous language, including how to fail over to the disaster recovery site and ensure that recovery is successful. Related content: Read our guide to disaster recovery policy 7. Identify Sensitive DataAll organizations maintain sensitive data, which may also be subject to compliance requirements, such as Personally Identifiable Information (PII), credit cardholder data, or other valuable data like intellectual property (IP). A disaster recovery plan must identify how this sensitive data is securely backed, and who should have access to the original copy and the backups, both during normal operations and in the event of a disaster. 8. Define a Communication Plan for Disaster EventsWhen disaster strikes, a company must have a clear plan for delivering essential information to affected parties, including:
The communication plan should include elements like public relations (PR), communication on the company websites, and social media. When there is a clear channel of communication with stakeholders about an event, customers and other stakeholders will feel reassured and will be more likely to continue their relationship with the company. 9. Physical Facility NeedsIn case of a physical disaster like a flood or earthquake, there will be a need to restore physical facilities. The disaster recovery plan should specify what is the minimal facility that will enable the company to restore normal operations—including office space, location, furniture needed, computing and IT equipment. 10. Run Disaster Recovery DrillsDisaster recovery plans might look great on paper, but fail when they are needed most. To avoid this from happening, run a drill and test your plan in a realistic scenario. Learn the lessons from the drill and update the plan to make it clearer and more effective for all parties involved. Disaster recovery plans must be updated at least once per year. Protecting Data Effortlessly with CloudianIf you need to backup data to on-premises storage, Cloudian offers low-cost disk-based storage with capacity up to 1.5 Petabytes. You can also set up a Cloudian appliance in a remote site and save data directly to the remote site using our integrated data management tools. Alternatively, you can use a hybrid cloud setup. Backup data to a local Cloudian appliance, and configure it to replicate all data to the cloud. This allows you to access data locally for quick recovery, while keeping a copy of data on the cloud in case a disaster affects the on-premise data center. Learn more about Cloudian’s data protection solution. Which of the following is most important to have a disaster recovery plan?C: Personnel safety is the most important factor for business continuity and disaster recovery planning.
What are the crucial elements that need to be detailed in every disaster recovery plan?6 Key Components of a Disaster Recovery Plan. The scope of your plan. ... . Organisational roles and responsibilities. ... . Your critical business functions and the tolerance for downtime. ... . A communication plan.. What should we consider during disaster recovery?Here are four things you must include in your disaster recovery plan and process, to ensure your business continuity.. Know Your Threats. ... . Know Your Assets. ... . Define Your RTO and RPO. ... . Set Up Disaster Recovery Sites. ... . Test Backups and Restoration of Services. ... . Risk Assessment. ... . Evaluate Critical Needs.. Which of the following is a critical first step in disaster recovery and contingency planning?The first step in disaster recovery and contingency planning is implementing a business impact analysis (BIA). The step involves identifying all possible threats and measuring the effect each can have on the company. This also includes identifying critical company functions and resources and calculating outage times.
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