subject: Are You Prepared For A Disaster? Is Your Disaster Recovery Plan The Best It Can Be? [print this page] A Disaster Recovery Plan is a complete preventive measure that helps obviate the harmful effects caused by unforeseen and unplanned events. These events may be either man-made or natural causes. The effect is more or less the same - disastrous. A disaster recovery plan is not only confined to calamities but also includes loss of core personnel. There are a number of factors that involve risk, which may culminate in the destruction of the normal business functioning.
Therefore it is essential for a business to perform a risk assessment to determine which risks the company is most susceptible to. These may include natural disasters, fire, power breakdowns, terrorist attacks, prearranged or intentional disruptions, system and/or apparatus failure, human errors, computer viruses as well as legal hassles.
A good disaster recovery plan is essential to prevent any of the above-mentioned occurrences. Therefore a good disaster recovery plan should have the following points covered:
* Giving notice to customers about occurrence of problems reduces greatly the effect of panic among customers
* Having backup facilities off site, especially relevant to large companies
* Having adequate support systems in place especially for workers who have to work long hours under stress during emergencies.
* Ensure that backup of vital information is stored in a safe place completely off site and away from the original location
In addition, the disaster recovery plan will also include the following points, among others:
* A copy of the original Plan
* Building and location Plan
* Floor Plans
* Copies of all legal documents
The presence of a disaster recovery plan should not induce a sense of complacency on the part of the management of the company. It needs to be constantly updated and changed to meet changing needs. It is a vibrant document which should always point to the latest disaster recovery plans. In other words, it should evolve as the organization grows and should always reflect the latest needs and contingencies of the company. It is also highly desirable to test out the disaster recovery plan through mock drills and dummy test runs. This could be done once a year and would facilitate checking the effectiveness of the disaster recovery plan.
The motivation behind having a disaster recovery plan is to greatly reduce (if not eliminate) the damage to the company, its human resources, clientele as well as investors prior to, during and after an emergency. First and foremost is the need to protect employees and human life. The second priority is to prevent damage and destruction to vital business information. For these very reasons the disaster recovery plan should kick in immediately there is an emergency. For this reason, advanced planning, culminating in forming a disaster recovery plan is of utmost importance.
When the disaster recovery plan kicks in on time it prevents loss to business information as well as realizes the significance of having adequate support systems. It will also help protect vital mission data. That disasters and emergencies can occur at any time of the day is reason enough to quickly formulate a disaster recovery plan.
Therefore its importance should never be underestimated. The main objectives of the disaster recovery plan could be to reduce greatly the occurrence of interruptions to normal operations, limit the extent of disruptions; reduce the economic impact of such interruptions, have alternative plans of action ready in the event of emergency, train personnel to handle emergencies, and have reliable plans to recover smoothly from disasters.
All this goes to show that having a disaster recovery plan is essential and with the ready supply of such documents from vendors, the whole task is greatly simplified as one can easily purchase a document that caters to every need of a good disaster recovery plan. The cost is not much and the time spent is greatly reduced when one buys the disaster recovery plan document from a vendor supplying such documents.
