Identifying Weak Points In A Disaster Recovery Plan
If your data center hasn’t experienced a disaster yet, chances are, it will someday. For businesses, having a good disaster recovery plan can mean the difference between surviving those events and shutting down for good.
According to the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, the world averaged 392 major disasters causing $102.6 billion in damage per year between 2000 and 2008. In addition, many minor disasters—a snowstorm, a fire, a broken water main—damage business-critical servers and result in costly downtime.
Recognizing the inevitability of these events, a growing number of organizations are turning their attention to disaster preparedness. In fact, a 2010 Forrester survey found that upgrading their disaster recovery and business continuity capabilities was the top technology priority for small businesses and No. 2 for enterprises. In addition, the same study found that 32% of enterprises and 36% of small businesses planned to increase their disaster recovery budgets by at least 5%.
For businesses, the key to surviving a disaster is having a disaster recovery plan. But not just any plan will do. Philip Jan Rothstein, FBCI, president of the Rothstein Associates management consulting firm, points out, “It’s got to be a meaningful plan–one you would bet your life on.”
For data centers, a meaningful plan identifies potential weak points in the systems and finds ways to overcome them before a disaster happens. To help identify those weak points, experts recommend three key tips: getting an outside perspective, testing the plan frequently, and updating the plan regularly.
See Identifying Weak Points In A Disaster Recovery Plan: An Outside Perspective, Testing & Regular Maintenance Are Key, by Cynthia Harvey for PROCESSOR.
Tags: Disaster Recovery, exercise, I.T. DIsaster Recovery, Testing
