What is a Disaster Recovery Plan?

Many small and mid-sized businesses overlook the need for a reliable disaster recovery plan. They’ve got a cloud backup, surely that’s enough?

Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

Over 40% of businesses don’t reopen after a major disaster and 25% fail within the first year after the crisis.

Effective disaster recovery services rely on a plan that helps minimise these risks.

We help businesses of all sizes prepare for the worst with robust disaster recovery plans. This guide explains disaster recovery planning and how to create your own plan.

What is Disaster Recovery?

Disaster recovery (DR) involves implementing IT technologies and best practices to prevent or minimise data loss and business disruption from catastrophic events such as equipment failures, power outages, cyber attacks, civil emergencies, and natural disasters.

A comprehensive disaster recovery plan involves strategic planning, deployment of appropriate technology, and continuous testing.

While maintaining data backups is essential, it’s just one part of a full disaster recovery plan. A robust strategy also encompasses recovery time objectives, processes for failover (transferring workloads to backup systems in the event of disaster) and detailed recovery procedures, amongst other elements.

What are the Key Elements of a Disaster Recovery Plan?

The main goal of a disaster recovery plan is to ensure that an organisation can effectively respond to IT emergencies and minimise the effect on business operations.

Here are key elements you’d find in a disaster recovery plan:

Risk Assessment and Business Impact Analysis (BIA):

• Risk Assessment: Identify potential threats (natural disasters, cyber attacks, hardware failures, etc.) and assess their likelihood and impact.
• Business Impact Analysis: Determine the critical functions and processes and evaluate the potential impact of disruptions on these areas.

Recovery Objectives:

• Recovery Time Objective (RTO): The maximum acceptable length of time that a system, application, or function can be down after a disaster.
• Recovery Point Objective (RPO): The maximum acceptable amount of data loss measured in time.

Data Backup:

• Regularly scheduled backups, ensuring data is stored in multiple locations, including off-site or cloud storage.
• Ensuring that backups are secure and regularly tested for integrity.

Disaster Recovery Strategies:

• Hot Sites: Fully equipped, operational facilities that can immediately take over the production environment.
• Warm Sites: Partially equipped sites that can be operational within a few hours.
• Cold Sites: Basic infrastructure that can be set up to restore services within a longer timeframe.
• Cloud-based DR: Leveraging cloud services for quick and flexible recovery.

Detailed Recovery Procedures:

• Step-by-step procedures for restoring systems, applications, and data.
• Clear roles and responsibilities for the recovery team.
• Contact information for key personnel and vendors.

Communication Plan:

• Procedures for internal and external communication during a disaster.
• Pre-drafted messages for stakeholders, customers, and media.

Training and Testing:

• Regular training sessions for staff on DR procedures.
• Frequent testing of the DR plan through simulations and drills to identify gaps and improve the plan.

Documentation and Version Control:

• Keeping detailed documentation of the DR plan and ensuring it is updated regularly.
• Version control to track changes and ensure the latest version is accessible.

Compliance and Legal Considerations:

• Ensuring the DR plan meets industry regulations and standards.
• Legal considerations such as data protection laws and contractual obligations with customers and partners.

Continuous Improvement:

• Regular reviews and updates of the DR plan based on lessons learned from drills and real incidents.
• Incorporating new technologies and methodologies to improve resilience.

Vendor and Third-Party Management:

• Ensuring that critical vendors and third-party services have their own DR plans.
• Establishing agreements and SLAs that include DR capabilities.

How To Create A Disaster Recovery Plan

Here are steps to create a disaster recovery plan for your business. It’s essential to store copies of the completed document in a safe, accessible location — preferably onsite and offsite.

Analyse Your Assets

Identify and inventory your business’s most critical IT assets, including applications, hardware, software, networks, and servers. Rank these assets by priority based on business value, stakeholder impact, financial impact, and legal compliance.

Conduct Risk Analysis

A comprehensive risk-management assessment will highlight your business’s security vulnerabilities and threats. Typically performed by your IT team, this analysis is a crucial step in disaster preparedness.

Set Objectives and Procedures

Define clear disaster recovery objectives using the RTO and RPO.

Develop Disaster Recovery Procedures

Using the asset inventory, risk analysis, RTO, and RPO, develop a detailed emergency plan for teams to follow in the event of a disaster. Key procedures should include:

• Data Backup: Define the frequency and location of backups.
• Physical Damage Response: Outline emergency responses to physical damage to assets.
• Recovery Actions: Specify actions required to restore data assets from backups following a disaster.

Manage Backups

Implement the 3-2-1 rule for backup storage:

• Keep one physical copy stored offsite.
• Maintain two digital copies of different types.
• Ensure all copies are up to date according to the RTO. Regularly scan backups for malware before initiating a restore process.

A reliable cloud backup service provider makes the 3-2-1 strategy easier and more practical for all types of growing businesses.

Test and Optimise

Train your team and regularly test the recovery procedures to ensure the plan is effective for rapid restoration of system operations. Conduct disaster recovery drills by restoring systems from backups and assess the results to improve and update your plan. Continually reassess and refine the disaster recovery plan, keeping detailed records of any changes made.

Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)

Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) is a cloud-based solution that enables businesses to back up their data on remote servers and monitor any incidents that could lead to primary data loss.

This service mitigates vulnerabilities associated with physical servers by maintaining secure remote backups. In the event of a disaster, essential data can be restored to the client’s servers from these remote backup locations, ensuring data integrity and continuity.

This allows businesses to maintain operations. In severe cases, applications and data can be hosted on the provider’s infrastructure. DRaaS is typically available through subscription or pay-per-use models.

By leveraging AAG’s Disaster Recovery as a Service, businesses can ensure robust disaster recovery capabilities that minimise downtime and protect against data loss.