In recovery
Having a disaster recovery (DR) plan is a great idea for any business, but many take it too far or do not look at all the options (Join the business continuity debate).
For example, does the business need to provide off-site working facilities for all its staff, or just a subset? Could sufficient infrastructure be put in place to allow users to work remotely during a disaster? It is about balancing the need to keep the business running with the cost of implementing DR.
Without a well-documented and tested DR plan, forget it. A DR plan can become obsolete remarkably quickly if documentation is not updated and IT staff are not made responsible for keeping the plan current.
George Mason
Great letter, I would say the same myself.
In fact I recently returned to a client that I had created Business Continuity (BC) / Disaster Recovery (DR) Plans for two years ago.
Despite a number of prompts, they had never tested the plan subsequent to our initial test. The person responsible for updating the plan had left the company (along with a lot of knowledge) nine months after its creation and the task was given to the office junior. Needless to say they neither had the understanding or incentive to make sure it was kept up to date, however it really was not that persons fault.
Luckily, the company had not suffered any catastrophic problems. But they came close to a couple!
The new MD of the company now understands the worth of such preparation and plans and has appointed a senior manager to be responsible for the BC/DR plan, they have carried out two tests since the beginning of the year and now feel very 'safe' and prepared for just about any eventuality. It's right to have a BC/DR plan, but someone has to take responsibility for it.
Posted by: Mike McNamara | Monday, 14 April 2008 at 11:00 AM