Planning for failure does not mean that one expects to fail, but rather that one acknowledges that unfavorable incidents out of their control can occur at any time and that a solid recovery plan is crucial to staying on top of the situation and making a strong comeback. An accident made by a new employee or an unforeseen cyberattack does not have to be the end of your company, nor do they have to grind business to a halt and take months to sort out. With a robust, well-thought-out, and regularly tested IT Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP), you can get operations running back at optimal capacity in no time, greatly reducing lost data, financial losses, and damages faced by the company.
In this article, we will explore some of the IT disasters a company could face, why every company should have a DRP in place, and how best to navigate them should the worst come to pass.
Why Your Business Needs a Disaster Recovery Plan
Many businesses in today’s digital world rely heavily on IT systems and infrastructure to operate effectively. Unless the business only deals in paper ledgers and cash-in-hand payments, IT is being used at some point along the way, and this technology, although convenient, is not infallible.
An unforeseen cyberattack could steal thousands of client’s personal data, a storm could damage hardware containing important information, or an employee could make a crucial mistake through the misconfiguration of IT systems or failure to apply a critical security patch.
Bad news can travel fast in this day and age, and suffering an IT disaster is only half of the issue. Once the business has suffered a disaster, regardless of whether it’s a result of poor management or unforeseen circumstances, its client base and other stakeholders may find out and it could irreparably damage the company’s reputation.
As a matter of fact, even the most robust systems can be at risk of various unforeseen adversities but appropriate implementation and testing of mitigative steps and a conscientious IT disaster recovery plan can greatly reduce the risk.
Preventative Measures
Effective disaster management comes through not only in how one controls an incident but also in how one could prevent it from occurring altogether. The following are a few methods that a proactive business can take to prevent an IT disaster.
Regular Backups
Backing up your company’s critical data and functional systems is arguably the most important step one can take to ensure that the situation is well-handled. Sometimes stopping a cyberattack is either out of the question or just handled too late. In either case, having a dedicated backup safely secured in an air-gapped network is an excellent method of keeping sensitive data safe.
Tight Security
Investing in sturdy and comprehensive security measures is also paramount to keeping sensitive data safe. Times change and technology advances in leaps and bounds every month. It is good practice to make sure the company is constantly vigilant against any new phishing scams, malware, ransomware, and Denial of Service (DoS) attacks by staying informed about the possible threats in circulation on the web and implementing procedures to avoid said threats.
Regular Maintenance
Consistent diagnostics tests to make sure all systems are performing properly are a great preventative line of defense. Bringing in an IT consultant to test a company’s systems can be the most surefire way of catching any gaps that may form over time. Regular updates in keeping with advancing technology and thorough hardware maintenance will keep everything running smoothly and decrease the chances of anything going wrong.
Trained Employees
Providing standardized training to employees will drastically reduce any mishaps from inside the company. Preparing for any external factors can consume much of the company’s focus, but it is important to remember that a simple miss-input can also have devastating effects. Ensuring your employees are all trained to a high standard allows them to rely on training in difficult or stressful situations that they are unsure about, causing fewer mistakes overall.
Disaster Recovery Plan
The final defense against a disaster is nothing less than a swift recovery. Implementing a concise and comprehensive DRP will guarantee that the company can minimize downtime, move through the disruption, and resume operations in a timely manner. A disaster recovery plan is simple in concept as it is an actionable list of objectives to complete should the worst come to pass.
The Action Plan
Set out the objectives that your company wishes to complete should a disaster occur in an easily accessible written form. Making an action plan and sticking to it can keep everyone focused on their allocated job without worrying about the full scope of the issue. Everyone should know what they are doing and when they need to do it, and keeping communications channels efficient should be paramount.
Inventory and Procedures
When preparing the standard response plan in case of a disaster, ensure that your company has an exhaustive list of all hardware and software assets, their use, and their importance to the business. The focus should always be on restoring critical systems first. Additionally, the location of and procedures surrounding offsite backups should be clearly documented, so data can be restored quickly.
Backup Procedures and Restoring Systems
A good DRP should include an estimate of the risk of data loss, which can be mitigated by frequent backups, as covered in the preventative measures section above. Additionally, the plan should include a step-by-step guide for procedures to be followed in the pursuit of returning to normal operations, which should be accessible to in-house or contracted IT specialists. Finally, an estimated time scale for the company returning to business-as-usual should be included and can greatly assist in setting expectations for employees and other stakeholders alike.
Bottom Line
Plainly put, a good DRP is a comprehensive plan outlining the processes and procedures required to recover IT systems and data in the event of a disaster. Each one needs to be tailored to the specifics of each company, but it always falls down to deciding what is most necessary to resume operations and manage potential fallout or data loss. No company is too big or too small to need a good DRP, and, as it is with many things, having one and not needing it is far better than needing it and not having it.
