A disaster recovery plan is often sponsored by key company stakeholders. Contributors are typically drawn from the organization’s IT department where managers and supervisors have the expertise to author and execute the strategies outlined in the plan. Because the plan ideally covers everything that falls under the umbrella of IT operations, it is common for many members of the department to construct its different sections.
IT stakeholders also predominantly drive a disaster recovery program, which has a much wider scope than a disaster recovery plan. It is usually funded through the organization’s IT budget, or through a combination of its IT budget and the budget of the responsible operating executive directly above IT. For the most part, capital contributions from the business-side are used to pay for annual or one-time expenditures. Otherwise, IT, which is responsible for carrying out the plan in the event of a disaster, may be allocated funding for the program as an integrated cost of operation.
The ongoing costs associated with a DR program include the following:
- Headcount – The salary for the staff, (and/or the cost of enlisting third party assistance,) required to execute the DR plan in the case of a disaster.
- Training – Orienting IT staff and management staff to the DR plan and practicing their respective roles.
- Infrastructure – Funding a secondary site for emergency use, ensuring that systems and data can be replicated to this new location, and keeping alternate paths of communication going.
- Software – Maintaining applications that protect the DR plan, as well as those needed to shift IT operations to the recovery site.
- Services – The cost of hiring a third party to maintain or assist with operations to the recovery site, as well as the cost of contracting telecommunications capability to ensure the network is functional during a crisis.
In addition to these ongoing costs that are funded by an organization’s IT budget, management may be required to provision hardware, software and services to prepare for, or help cope with a disaster. But because it is IT that is primarily responsible for developing and executing the DR plan, the majority of the plan’s funding should be imbedded in the department’s budget.
