Disaster Recovery Planning: How to Create Efficiencies with Existing Artifacts

create efficiencies

Most organizations already store information needed to implement a Disaster Recovery Plan somewhere in their databases, documents and spreadsheets. The process of Artifact Mapping allows an organization to reuse, combine and repurpose current information in the development of a Disaster Recover Strategy. There are pockets of information just sitting out there on an IT server waiting to be utilized!

If a DR analyst knows where to look, the information gathered and stored can be very useful in putting together a Disaster Recovery Plan without distracting scarce resources.

Use existing artifacts

Artifacts include company-specific documents or files produced or maintained in IT and by IT processes, such as a list of employee contacts. Mapping the Artifacts to the elements of the DR lifecycle, as identified in the Disaster Recovery Checklist, is very beneficial to the efficient creation of a DR Plan. As the checklist indicates, there are three phases: strategy, implementation, and maintenance—all of which involve Artifacts useful in DR planning. There are common IT processes and Artifacts that relate to each of these phases that are widely used to manage IT.

Here are some of the Artifacts that you may find useful to create a DR plan efficiently:

  • A service catalogue
  • Service level agreements
  • Service & support contracts
  • Information security evaluations leases
  • Equipment warranty information
  • Software inventories & designated IT support personnel
  • Lists of servers (physical & virtual)
  • Lists of other IT assets (network devices, storage units, peripherals, etc.)
  • Process flows
  • List of software licences & versions

This list is not exhaustive; organizations store all sorts of useful information that can be used to create, refresh or maintain a DR plan or program. Information often overlaps between sources, and in order to create a cohesive Disaster Recovery plan, gathering, interlinking and maintaining this information is critical. There are also standard IT processes that have activities overlapping with Disaster Recovery and need DR interests in their process work flows—for instance, a checkpoint, fields on a form, or an extra step or decision relating to DR.

Many forms of existing company information can feed the initial steps of creating a Disaster Recovery Strategy, like lists of:

  • Applications and systems of the organization
  • Servers, storage, and networking technology
  • Current incidents and threats

Mapping Artifacts to DR creates productivity efficiencies. Don’t start from scratch when creating a Disaster Recovery Strategy. From a productivity standpoint, much of the work is already done. The next steps involve repurposing, resorting, and restructuring the information to suit the needs of your DR Planning. A complete assessment of current Artifacts and their overlap in the strategic phase of Disaster Recovery planning results in certain gaps and synergies emerge to, revealing where focus is required.

Mapping Artifacts to DR creates cost efficiencies. Using existing Artifacts to create and implement a Disaster Recovery plan can create cost efficiencies for a business.

This is because using existing Artifacts:

  • Speeds up DR processes
  • Reduces the cost of employing external resources
  • Reduces the cost of errors and failures

In the early stages of Disaster Recovery planning, it is crucial that a business exploits the information that it currently possesses to create a thorough Disaster Recovery Strategy. Utilizing these Artifacts in a way that reduces cost and increases productivity is paramount to sustaining a successful DR Program.

Steve Tower

With many years of professional IT experience, and training as a Certified Management Consultant, a Project Management Professional, a Professional Engineer and a Member, Business Continuity Institute, Steve Tower has the skills and abilities required to assist with even the most complex disaster recovery planning initiatives. Below, Steve discusses the necessary tools involved in setting up a disaster recovery plan and program.