When a natural disaster (flood, earthquake, etc.) or electronic disaster (virus, systems crash, etc.) strikes an organization, the results can be devastating. Luckily, there are tools available to make coping less stressful.
Tools capable of smoothing the disaster recovery process can be categorized into three major groups: plan accessibility, communication technology, and site operation components.
Plan accessibility. A key element to any successful Disaster Recovery program is to have a plan that is readily accessible to those responsible for using it. Everything documented, from procedures to contact information, should be available to everyone involved with putting the plan into action.
Making the plan accessible – and keeping it separate from the data that is at risk– can be achieved in a few different ways. The plan can be saved to a recovery hot site, published and downloaded to individual devices (smartphones, tablets or laptops) as personal copies, or kept in a secure third party location in the cloud. Back-up copies can also be periodically copied to portable media (e.g. flash memory drives), or even printed and locked in a protected location. The key is accessibility, to those who need it, when they need it!
Communication technology. Another integral component to mitigating the impact of disaster is communication. Unfortunately and somewhat ironically, communication is often hampered when disaster strikes. For instance, a program virus can shutdown certain electronic communication options, a power outage can prevent personal contact information from being shared via e-mail, and extreme weather can knockout phone and internet services.
Because communication is so vital to overcoming a disaster, and because disasters innately threaten communicative capabilities, it is important for an organization to make use of well-scripted steps, up-to-date contact lists and resilient technologies. Whether they are voice, text, BBM, email, or system based, utilizing secondary services, they can significantly speed up disaster recoveries.
Effective tools include auto-calling and notification, cloud-based storage of key contact information, and other external services, which can broadcast messages during a disaster.
Recovery site operations. The third major component to smoothing disaster recovery is having another site prepared for operations, even before disaster occurs. Having the infrastructure available to implement the DR plan, the support mechanisms to run the recovery site, the provisioning of communications to and from that site, the capacity to replicate or copy information there, and the ability to get appropriate personnel working there quickly, can make the difference between a successful and unsuccessful recovery.
The services to support recovery sites are available from a number of data centre service providers, as well as the main telecommunications carriers in Canada, such as Telus, Bell and Rogers. Alternatively, with the proper IT resources, they can be provided in-house, if you have suitable locations within your organization.
