An Updated Disaster Recovery Plan Is Simply Common Sense
If you’ve been in business long enough, you’ve been touched at some point by Murphy’s Law. The truth is that accidents, snafus and screw-ups do happen, and usually at the most inopportune times. They can strike anywhere, anytime, in the corner offices or down on the shop floor.
Luckily, a little preparedness and hard work can limit the damage these typically minor events can bring. But knowing that bad stuff happens, how is it possible that organizations fail to prepare for major disasters such as fire, flooding or extended power outages?
Some Preparation Is Better Than None
It doesn’t take a whole lot of critical thinking to anticipate the threats and potential damages that a major disaster can bring. Even if you don’t have a disaster recovery plan, at the very least your organization should have considered the consequences in the event “lightning” strikes.
Creating a plan that addresses some but not all threats beats no plan at all. At least you’ll have some components in your preparations that are re-usable (think: Apollo 13?).
And then there are those businesses that look at their Disaster Recovery plan as a “set-and-forget” proposition. They devised DR some time in the past, but they have since spent no time or resources validating, revisiting or updating the plan.
A Forgotten DR Plan Loses Value Quickly
The fact is, an outdated DR plan may not be much better than no DR plan at all. Constant evolution of systems, personnel, software versions, scripts, passwords – the kinds of changes that happen regularly in any business – can render untouched DR plans obsolete.
DR plans need to be kept current and need to be regularly tested in order to maintain their value. This holds true for all kinds of contingency plans. You can have a backup generator full of fuel, but unless you start it up occasionally, you have no idea if the fuel has gone bad, rendering the generator useless in an emergency.
Testing your DR Plan Is Critical
Updating your DR plan can be as simple as going through a checklist of your organization’s systems, recovery strategies and technologies and making sure everything is up to date. Alternatively, you can undergo a focused DR assessment, which can more thoroughly uncover and describe the gaps in your DR plan, and ensure it is able to meet the most current threats to you and your stakeholders.
In either case, though, testing the plan to make sure it actually works is the crucial element. It’s poor practice not to create, update and verify safety measures: with so much awareness of the potential everyday threats our organizations face, there’s no reason not to think ahead.