Most businesses today are heavily reliant upon IT services. With desktops, Internet Protocol phone lines, digital databases, web-based software and so much more all commonplace in everyday business operations, any disruption to an organisation can be costly.
An IT disaster will impact a business’ productivity, communication and security, which in turn results in financial losses.
And those losses are too significant to ignore, with research suggesting that just a minute of unplanned downtime can cost a business up to £13,700. The more IT reliant the organisation, the higher this figure will be.
With that in mind, a seamless IT disaster recovery plan is a must for any business, regardless of its size or sector.
What is IT Disaster Recovery?
IT disaster recovery is the process of restoring a business, following any sort of IT disruption, in order to minimise the impact on operations, cash flow and reputation. A disturbance can affect anything from servers, desktops and databases right through to applications and mobile devices.
Effective IT disaster recovery, therefore, requires a robust plan that should form part of an overarching business continuity strategy. Whilst this strategy considers the business as a whole, including all operations, an IT disaster recovery plan focuses solely on the business’ IT infrastructure.
Why do businesses need an IT Disaster Recovery Plan?
As mentioned above, IT disaster recovery plans are important in minimising financial loss in the event of downtime resulting from disruption. Beyond that, no matter what industry you operate in, there are also certain rules and regulations you must comply with and failing to do so could result in hefty fines and penalties.
In addition, data breaches and cyber attacks can cause detrimental reputational damage, which can in turn impact a business in many other ways. For example, you can lose the trust of loyal customers and suppliers and deter any new ones. It is clear that effective IT disaster planning is an important business consideration.
How can you create an IT Disaster Recovery Plan?
When it comes to IT disaster planning, a plan is better than no plan, of course but a comprehensive thought out strategy will always come out on top.
With so much at stake and so much to consider, it’s easy to get lost but taking the following steps will put you well on the way of building resilience against any IT disaster.
These steps are largely universal but, in order to formulate the most robust plan, businesses should tailor them to the specifics of their own operations, capabilities and resources.
The right plan starts with the right people.
As the impact of an IT disaster is likely to be company-wide, it requires input from people across the business. A committee made up of key decision-makers from various departments, including management, finance, HR and IT, should be responsible for outlining, implementing, testing and maintaining the IT disaster recovery plan.
This way, you can ensure that consideration is given to differing departmental needs and functions, creating a more practical and realistic plan that is fit for purpose, should it be needed.
Give your plan purpose
Setting out goals for your IT disaster recovery plan will help you stay on track when outlining strategies and activities. It will also give you a way to measure its success and effectiveness.
Goals may include:
- Reduce the risk of an IT disaster
Knowing that you will conduct a risk assessment as part of your IT disaster plan, a goal to strengthen any vulnerabilities that are identified is useful, as it better places your business for future eventualities by reducing risk and impact.
- Efficiently resume operations
Perhaps the most important goal of a disaster recovery plan is how efficiently it allows the business to resume operations following a disruption. The solutions provided by the plan should aim to minimise any damage and loss to the business.
- Address stakeholder concerns
When a disruption occurs, there are likely to be a set of key stakeholders who will be heavily invested and impacted. The plan must, therefore, identify what concerns may arise and ensure they are addressed.
Conduct thorough risk assessments
A risk assessment is a vital activity in IT disaster recovery planning. First, you should identify all potential threats to the business, such as cyber attacks, network or power outages, natural disasters and pandemics. There may also be others to include that are specific to your industry.
A business impact analysis should be conducted alongside a risk assessment, which will allow you to analyse how each department or operation in the business might be impacted.
Once the risks and impacts have been analysed, priorities can be identified in terms of what is most or least likely to occur and which areas will be affected. For example, cyber attacks are common and can have large commercial impacts across a business.
In this case, risk and impact is potentially high, so cyber attacks should be high on the list of priorities and the disaster recovery plan must address and provide a robust response to this type of disruption.
These assessments should also identify the recovery point objective (RPO) and the recovery time objective (RTO) which measure the company’s tolerance to downtime.
The RPO tells you the age of the files that need to be recovered in the event of downtime, which should then inform how frequently backups should be performed.
The RTO is the amount of time it will take to recover files from the back-end following a disaster and, therefore, how long the business will cope in a downtime.
Know what you own
It is good practice to take regular inventory of your IT infrastructure, whether as part of your disaster recovery plan or just a general administrative activity.
Knowing what IT you have in your organisation, including hardware and software allows you to effectively plan what needs to be accounted for in your restoration plan. You can identify what devices or systems should take priority and ensure that no potential breaches will go unmissed.
Communication is key
An emergency communication plan should also form a key part of your disaster recovery strategy. In the event of a disruption, the usual means of communication will be impacted, so a backup plan is required in order to keep stakeholders informed.
This backup plan might involve a mass notification functionality to employees’ personal emails or phones. A function like this could be integrated into your unified communication platform and can be used during a disaster, if it has not been affected.
Communication in these situations can encourage a collaborative effort towards restoration, which may prove beneficial. Similarly, if users are unaware of a disruption, they could unknowingly make matters worse by attempting to get back onto systems while they are running updates or rebooting etc.
Consider a Plan B
A well-considered backup option can be a vital lifeline during an IT disruption, so it is definitely something to consider including in your disaster recovery operation.
The backup plan should allow users to continue with their usual work, as though the disaster hasn’t occurred. Depending on the nature of your business activities, this may require a backup location where employees can work collaboratively or a remote working set up, which is secure and complies with the usual company and regulatory requirements.
Cloud-hosted systems allow users to work collaboratively whilst being remotely located, which could provide a useful backup option should on-site IT infrastructure become defective or disrupted.
Data derived from the RTO and RPO analysis should also be used to inform your backup plan. For example, users will need to carry on working with files and data of a certain age, which is determined by the RPO figure and, therefore, how often the system is backed up in normal circumstances.
Are your third-party contracts protected?
Due to the complexity and expense associated with IT infrastructure, many businesses opt for third-party providers of certain equipment and systems. In these cases, service level agreements (SLAs) are usually signed but it is worth checking whether a disaster recovery plan is included.
Most reputable providers will account for such circumstances, however, if you cannot find a clause, it might be best to contact them to see what they can do or to choose a provider who can offer the service when it’s time to renew. Although this may cause some hassle, it is nothing compared to the damage and loss you may experience in a disaster.
Once you have an idea of the disaster recovery plans included in your SLAs, you can really scope out a full picture for the level of operations required to protect and manage your entire IT infrastructure in the event of a disaster.
Run regular tests
Running regular risk assessments and tests on your recovery plan is the best way to understand its effectiveness and to ensure it is fit for purpose. Regular checks will make sure the business is accounted for in its current form, so that, if a disaster hits, the plan is as up to date and relevant as possible. When running tests you are likely to encounter obstacles that you can overcome quickly and in less critical circumstances, which will then make your recovery plan stronger and more robust.
Consider a disaster recovery service
If you didn’t before, you now know the importance of disaster recovery planning. Due to the level of impact IT disasters can cause, recovery plans require a lot of time, effort and knowledge in order to be effective.
Therefore, outsourcing the activity to an expert disaster recovery service may be a more suitable option to ensure your business keeps running in every eventuality.
Tela offers a range of disaster recovery solutions covering everything from off-site backup and recovery, to disaster recovery plans. To find out more, contact our expert team today.
