5 things your IT Disaster Recovery Plan should cover

To assume that IT disaster will not happen to your organization because of its upbeat security and support is living like an Ostrich hiding his face under sand after seeing a hunter. Disasters will happen and the only way to keep them from affecting the business is to stay prepared. A Disaster recovery plan is the first step to being ready. It should be a thorough plan and should be updated regularly

5 important things the plan should include

1. Analyzing all potential threats and possible reactions to them-
   Not all scenarios are likely or even equally likely to occur but anticipating them reduces the chances of you getting into the crosshair of the unknown. The reactions can be kept in the DR plan, especially giving significant depth to the cyber attack as these are the most havoc causing situations.
2. Analyzing the business impact of different incidents-
   A business impact analysis (BIA) identifies and evaluates the potential effects (financial, regulatory etc) by different IT disasters. BIA will help in prioritizing the impact recovery and dependencies. The BIA should examine- confidentiality, integrity and availability thoroughly.
3. People-
   DR plan should always include the most important aspect of business- People. DR plan must include a clear set of operating procedures for people and behavior which is expected of them during the incidents. The plan must also include the responsible position in charge to respond to different incidents and their roles to smoothly tackle with anything related to the disaster.
4. Updating the DR plan-
   One of the problems regularly seen is companies or CTO’s tend to create a DR plan and not update it regularly. Technology as well disaster scenarios are evolving rapidly and needs detailed handling plan as well update in the DR plan. Technology advances, predictive algorithms and better computing capacity at a reasonable price allows better solutions to tackle IT situations and should be constantly taken into consideration.
   In fact, Disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) can be also be explored given the cloud-based technologies are truly changing the business IT infrastructures are used.
5. Regular Practice Drills-
   Just like military forces and Police take mock drills, the DR plan should be tested regularly to evaluate its short comings as well as understand the resilience of the organization. This will also help understand the priorities of action plan and improve the flow of recovery plan.

IT disasters can lead to breaking companies and tarnishing the reputation beyond repair. It is imperative to keep such disasters from braking the companies and containing them. Planning, practices and preparedness is the only solutions.