Disaster Recovery
Almost all businesses now rely on technology to manage the different areas of their operations. A disruption to the availability of any of these resources, even if only for a few hours, can have serious consequences on their ability to function at normal capacity. The costs to the business during these events can run into thousands of pounds.
How a business responds to a disaster, whether that be the more common event of hardware failure or a catastrophic event of fire, flood or theft will determine how they emerge on the other side. If not well prepared many organisations struggle to recover and do not survive in the long-term. This is where disaster recovery planning comes into play.
A disaster recovery plan (DRP) — part of a business continuity plan (BCP) — is a comprehensive set of measures and procedures put into place within a business to ensure that essential, mission critical resources and infrastructures are maintained or backed up by alternatives during various stages of a disaster.
A Disaster Recovery Plan must address three areas:
1.Prevention (pre-disaster): The pre-planning required to minimise the overall impact of a disaster on systems and resources. Pre-planning also maximises the ability of a business to recover from a disaster.
This stage requires the identification of all business risks throughout the organisation to enable the creation of business resilience strategies.
2.Continuity (during a disaster): The process of maintaining core, mission-critical systems and resource “skeletons” (the bare minimum assets required to keep a business in operational status). Continuity measures enable a business to cope with a disaster by preserving essential systems and resources.
3.Recovery (post-disaster): The steps required for the restoration of all systems and resources to full, normal operational status.
Once created a DRP should be reviewed and tested regularly to ensure it is up to date. Attention should be paid to new systems and processes that might not have been included in the original plan.
So, what are the benefits of having a Disaster Recovery Plan?
They protect a business in many ways:
- Enables a business to continue operationally in the event of a disaster.
- Reduces system downtime and recovery time, therefore minimising costs from lost business.
- Minimises the risk of permanent loss of data helping the business stay compliant with data retention regulations.
- Reduce the amount of decision-making required during a high-stress time.
- Diminish the risk of business failure following a disaster.
BMS IT Solutions can assist you in the design and implementation of a suitable Disaster Recovery Plan for your business. For further information please contact a Business Development Manager on 01473 744000.
