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In the event of an emergency, you want to know that your valuable data is safe.

Disaster recovery planning is the means by which technology disasters are anticipated and addressed. The first challenge in this planning process is to quantify the meaning of the word "disaster" and how it relates to your business. An example of a technology disaster can be any unexpected problem that results in a slowdown, interruption, or failure in a system or network. A disaster is defined several different ways; there are natural unforeseen disasters (i.e. fire, earthquake, hurricane…), technical failures, malicious acts, theft, incompatibilities, or simple human error.

Whatever the cause; service outages, connectivity failures, data loss, or related technical issues can result in disruption of your daily business operations. This can affect several areas of your business such as lost revenues, productivity issues, increased expenses, poor customer service, and employee productivity, but more importantly lost customer confidence in your business continuity.

Information Technology disaster recovery strategies must be developed, documented and tested to ensure proof of concept that your plan is effective and addresses your business and security policies. At a minimum a disaster recovery plan must address three basic needs.

Prevention (to avoid and minimize disaster frequency and occurrence)
Anticipation (to identify likely disasters and related consequences)
Mitigation (to take steps for managing disasters to minimize negative impact)

Preventative disaster recovery planning is to ensure that all crucial systems are as secure and reliable as possible. This will reduce the frequency or likelihood of "technology related disasters". Since natural disasters usually lie outside our foreseeable control, prevention most often applies to system problems and human errors. This includes physical hardware failures, software bugs, configuration errors and omissions, and acts of malicious intent (virus attacks, security violations, data corruption). By deploying the appropriate set of tools and techniques it is possible to prevent a majority of the occurrences and related damage from any of these sorts of "disasters".

Here are some steps that you can take to prevent a technology disaster:

Configure systems according to tested standards and manufacturer recommendations.
Apply software patches and bug fixes on a regular basis.
Monitor systems on a regular basis to ensure performance and adequate storage capacity.
Use virus prevention and detection tools, backup power supply and surge protectors to prevent damage and data loss from electrical spikes and power outages.
Configure critical systems with equipment and storage redundancies.
Use software tools and appropriate management techniques to prevent security violations. Developing hardware and software standards will minimize the range of potential problems while facilitating problem resolution.

Anticipation strategies revolve around "assumptions" or the ability to foresee possible disasters. Contingency planning is a challenging process which requires an in-depth knowledge of your business, knowledge of operations and a keen understanding of what the ramifications would be in the event of lost business data and properties. More importantly how lost data will affect the future of the business.

In order to identify possible consequences and appropriate responses you need to plan for the "what if's". Identify potential disaster scenarios (what can happen?), quantify probabilities (what is the likelihood that a given disaster will occur?) and articulate consequences (should this disaster occur, what would the impact be upon our business and our staff?)

Mitigation is all about "reaction and recovery" which is the ability to respond when a disaster occurs and to accept that certain disasters are unavoidable. The goal of any mitigation strategy is to minimize the potential negative impact on your resources. There are several tools and strategies that you can employ to develop an effective mitigation plan:

Maintaining current technical documentation.
Conducting regular tests of your disaster recover plans and strategies
Have loaner equipment available.
Regularly scheduled backups with periodic copies stored in a safe off-site location.
Develop a remote access plan to allow designated staff to work from home or other locations
Identify manual operating procedures in the event of a prolonged outage.

Effective disaster recovery planning and consequence management can offer many benefits. Once you acknowledge the value of technology to your organization, you must also consider the related consequences if that technology becomes temporarily unavailable, or completely inaccessible. Addressing these issues can offer several key benefits while minimizing the negative impact of a disaster. This will save time and money while providing an orderly recovery process which will reduce "panic" decision-making. As a business owner it will allow you to protect your proprietary business assets and can also reduce legal or regulatory liabilities. This process will also set realistic expectations about the need for systems management tools and resources.

These benefits form an impressive list, but as with any other management practice, these benefits come at price. Effective disaster recovery planning costs time and money, which boils down to effort, skills, staff resources, and implementation tools (i.e. hardware and software). As a business owner you need to weigh the benefits against the costs to determine the overall business value of disaster recovery planning.

You may want to prepare for every disaster, but financial realities and resource capabilities may preclude that level of protection. By carefully balancing your business needs and practical realities, you can create a disaster recovery plan that meets both your financial and business continuity needs.

Michelle Brochu
Sales Manager, Sr. Sales Consultant
Business Services Division
Michelle Brochu has been with Systems Plus for over 10 Years. Her expertise is primarily with Network Projects, Server Migrations and Implementations. She has several technical sales certifications from Microsoft, Symantec and Citrix.

Systems Plus Computers, Inc.
Centerra Park 12 Centerra Parkway, Suite 20, Lebanon, NH 03766
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