How To Develop A Disaster Recovery Plan: Six Key Tips

IT disasters are inevitable. They range from cyber attacks to power outages, and if they occur when you’re unprepared, they may cause severe losses. The best way to safeguard your business and sustain its success is to develop a strong disaster recovery plan.

To develop a disaster recovery plan, consider the following tips:

1. Map out your responses to different risks. Disaster recovery following a network equipment outage will look different than the responses called for after a ransomware attack. (There are also combinations of disasters to account for, such as hackers who deploy malware and launch DDoS attacks simultaneously.)
2. Be as specific as possible. For example, name the employees in charge of different aspects of disaster recovery (such as notifying the public or overseeing data restoration). Come up with clear, measurable goals, such as the maximum allowable downtime for certain critical applications and the frequency with which you’re performing data backups. When planning how you’ll recover from a cyber attack, differentiate between different kinds of attacks and their likely effects.
3. Conduct a thorough company review. Do you know where you’re storing all your data (the cloud, on-premises backup drives, etc.)? Are you aware of the vulnerabilities in your network? What major weather phenomena are likely to affect you? You can’t plan without this kind of detailed knowledge. You’ll also need to update your plan as your company undergoes changes.
4. Prioritize your data and other assets. What’s your most critical, sensitive data? What other IT assets do you need to protect most strongly? This information will shape your disaster recovery plan.
5. Make sure you’re always ready to respond. If a disaster strikes, designated employees will quickly issue communications, retrieve and restore data backups, etc. Even when disaster isn’t imminent, you should remain on alert – for example, by monitoring your network round-the-clock and regularly backing up your data. Disaster recovery depends on extensive preparations.
6. Test your plan. Run drills or exercises to ensure that your employees know what to do and that your disaster recovery measures work as you expect them to.

For further questions, please contact us. A well-developed disaster recovery plan protects you against severe financial losses and even the possibility of going out of business. We can help you draw up your disaster recovery plan and implement it successfully.