Disaster Recovery: Things You Should Know

Cost of Downtime

Network crashes eat profits. How much does an hour of downtime cost your business? One study reveals the following range of costs for companies:

CIO Magazine, June 15, 2000

Disaster Preparedness Self-Evaluation

The questions that follow are designed to help you assess your own preparedness in the event of a disaster. Specifically, these questions will help you assess your awareness of various risks, ongoing practices and procedures, and your business continuity plan itself.

Risk

1. Are you aware of all business and financial risks associated with a disaster situation?
2. Have you considered all liabilities and fiduciary responsibilities your organization might face in the event of a disaster?
3. Have you performed a formal analysis that considers all these risks?

Practices and Procedures

1. Are backups performed on a regular, frequent basis?
2. Do your backups include all devices?
3. Do you send your backups to a secure off-site facility?
4. Is your backup medium current and supported?
5. Do you have and use a viable backup rotation plan?
6. Do you employ a fully automated backup process?
7. Is your backup retention in line with all legal requirements, as well as any regulatory agencies in your industry?

Your Business Continuity Plan

1. Do you have a written business continuity plan?

(Answer no to all remaining questions if no plan exists)
2. Does your plan have the full support of the entire organization, including top management?
3. Does the plan meet up-time requirements as specified by top management?
4. Is the cost of your plan included in your budget, and is the budgeted amount sufficient?
5. Does your plan include all backup and archive procedures?
6. Does your plan extend beyond mere data recovery to include resumption of all critical company functions?
7. Have relevant portions of your plan been communicated to all employees?
8. Have you fully tested this plan, including worst-case scenarios?
9. Was the testing completely successful?
10. Do you update this plan regularly as your business changes?