Things Your IT Disaster Recovery Plan Should Include

Whether your business is brand new or has been around for years, you never know when disaster will strike - or what form that disaster will take. It could be a fire or a flood. It could be a data breach that exposes the personal information of your customers. It could even be an insider attack from a disgruntled employee.

You may not be able to predict when the next disaster will strike your business or what type of disaster it will be, but you are far from powerless. As a responsible business owner, you can develop a comprehensive disaster recovery program - a step-by-step guide you can use to overcome the obstacles life puts in your way.

?So what should that disaster recovery plan include, and how can you get started? Here are some of the key parts of any sound disaster recovery plan.

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Risk Assessment and Business Impact Analysis (BIA)

The whole purpose of a disaster recovery plan is to help your business survive. No matter where the danger comes from, you want to know you will be able to overcome the challenges and come out stronger on the other side.

You will not be able to create a disaster recovery plan for your business until you know which threats you face and what kinds of events are most likely to befall your firm. The first part of any disaster recovery plan is a comprehensive risk assessment and business impact analysis.

During this part of the process, you look at all the potential risks your business faces, from the failure of a key server or the loss of critical files to a hacker or ransomware attack to a fire, flood or other natural disasters. Once those risks have been assessed, you can look at the impact each event would have on your business, from the trust of your clients to your ability to make payroll.

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Inventory Hardware and Software

Hardware and software failures are common disasters for business owners, and your comprehensive disaster recovery program should include a thorough analysis of what you own and how you use it.

You use computers every day as part of your business, and you rely on sophisticated software to communicate with clients, create paychecks, collect payments and much more. Even so, you may not have a list of all those software packages or the hardware they run on.

As you work to build a comprehensive disaster recovery plan, you can create a detailed inventory of all the hardware and software the business owns. From the servers in the computer room and the routers connecting you to the internet to the laptops used by your sales staff and the terminals in the call center, this inventory should be complete and highly detailed.

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Incident Response Team

Hopefully, you will never need to put your disaster recovery program into place, but if the worst happens you need to know what to do and who to call. An incident response team is a critical part of any disaster recovery program, so think about who has the necessary skills before you continue.

This incident response team may be comprised of members of the IT staff, men and women who have the technical expertise to repair servers, troubleshoot software and get your systems back online. The team may also include key managers, a group of individuals who can communicate with customers, provide updates and soothe hard feelings stemming from the incident.

It is important to keep your incident response team updated, possibly integrating it with human resources and other parts of the business' administration. You do not want to wait for a disaster only to find out that a key member of the team is no longer with the company.

Once the incident response team has been identified and the members of that team notified, you will want to detail the exact disaster response procedures, including what will happen in the event of a fire, flood, hack attack or ransomware demand. The disaster recovery plan should include a detailed list of tasks to be completed, as well as a timeline and information about the responsibilities of each team member. The more detailed this part of the disaster recovery plan is the better, so write it all out and solicit feedback from all involved.

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Keep Your Disaster Recovery Plan at the Ready

Creating a comprehensive disaster recovery plan is no easy task, and building one will involve lots of hard work and long nights. Once that disaster recovery plan has been created, do not keep it a secret.

It is important that everyone on the incident response team know where the disaster recovery plan is located and how to access it in an emergency. Keep in mind that the plan may not be available online if a key server fails or a critical piece of software stops operating, so having hard copies of the document will be vital.

You never know when a disaster will strike your business, so the only thing you can do is be ready. Many businesses that suffer a disaster never reopen, so what you do when the worst happens could literally be a life or death decision for your business. Now is the time to create your disaster recovery plan, so you can do business with confidence no matter what life throws your way.

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