IT Disaster Recovery Planning

IT Disaster Recovery is the ability of an organisation to respond to a disaster or an interruption in IT services by implementing a plan to stabilise and restore the organisations critical IT Infrastructure.

Scope includes:-

• Hardware
• Operating Systems                                                
• Applications
• LAN/WAN Networks
• PABX/VOIP Phone Systems

Why Plan?

Outages to IT systems can cost thousands in lost revenue, lost productivity and legal issues.

• A sustained IT outage can threaten the viability of an organisation
• To resume operations in a timeline and rebuild in an orderly fashion to minimise impact

Process:-

1. IT Disaster Recovery Programme Management (Charter and Project Plan)

Scope out the overall programme including extent of IT infrastructure, locations, data centres, applications, business users, testing and training.

Define project budget, timeline and resources of project including milestones, KPIs, project boundaries, exclusions and assumptions.

2. Understanding Your Business (Indentify Risks/Impacts)

2.1   IT Infrastructure Audit – inventory of IT environment

2.2   Disaster Recovery Analysis

Risk Evaluation – What are the potential risks to the IT environment, their likelihood, impact and risk rating?

2.3   Disaster Recovery Impact Analysis

        Business Impact Assessment (BIA) – captures the recovery timeframes and dependencies for the

        organisation critical business processes.

• Which processes/applications are most critical?
• How long can you afford to be without them?
• Who is affected by IT downtime? At what cost?
• Determine maximum acceptable outage                
  

3. Disaster Recovery Strategy    (Identify Responses)

• Identify cost and evaluate recovery options
• Develop capital, expense and recurring cost budgets
• Define and document Disaster Recovery strategy

Details the high level IT Disaster Recovery Strategy for the organisation based on the Risk Evaluation – based on time.

Example:-

• Alternative Site Strategy
• Data Communication Recovery Strategy
• Voice Communication Recovery Strategy
• Tape Back-up/Restoration Strategy
• Recovery Strategy
  
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