You Manage What You Measure
A key part of disaster recovery planning involves measuring how things are going. This is usually referred to as “metrics.” Usually, we think of metrics as they relate to data center issues like up time, response time, number of network outages, etc. But there are more important issues to address using metrics.
When disaster recovery is considered, metrics are often not maintained or scarce to say the least. This doesn’t need to be the case. Just to get started, consider the following five sample metrics for keeping track of how DRP is going:
- Total number of applications supported from the computer facility - This sets the scope for the potential for DRP requirements
- % of total applications covered by a DR strategy - Could include hot sites, high availability systems, quick ship requirements, etc.
- # of DR test hours scheduled each year - This is the total scheduled test time in a one-year period
- % of total DR scheduled test time actually used each year - Could be under or over 100%, and can be reported as a cumulative metric throughout the year
- # of months since the last DR Plan “Maintenance Cycle” - Ideally, this should not exceed 6 months
Just by starting with these five metrics you’ll begin to keep track of how your firm’s disaster recovery capability is progressing. It also is an easy way to report to management on progress and issues identified. Metrics will relate to these kinds of issues very well.
For a more detailed discussion of disaster recovery metrics, see the Disaster Recovery Journal Winter 2005 issue, Volume 18, Number 1, The Time Has Come for DRP Metrics, by Jan Persson.
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