As recent events have reminded us, disasters can strike at any time. Earthquakes in Colorado and Virginia as well as the arrival of hurricane season and Hurricane Irene should provide plenty of motivation to review your organizations’ disaster preparedness plans. Even if you already have a detailed plan, it should be reviewed regularly to account for changes in your organizations processes and/or systems.
If your organization does not have any documented plans, you don’t have an adequate plan. Remember that disaster preparedness is not just an IT function. It is a business function. The IT staff can help provide redundancy for technology systems but creating the alternate business processes requires the shared input of the management of your organization.
Colden Company Inc. is certified by the Disaster Recovery Institute (DRI) as a Certified Business Continuity Planner. The DRI provides the following high-level outline for your organization:
- Program Initiation
- Rick Evaluation
- Business Impact Analysis
- Business Continuity Strategies
- Emergency Response
- Business Continuity Plans
- Awareness and Training
- Plan Testing and Maintenance
- Crisis Communication
- Coordination with External Agencies
Certainly, following the above outline will result in a comprehensive disaster preparedness plan. Smaller organizations may wish to use a more informal process of determining acceptable downtime (recovery time objective) and identifying critical systems that need to be recovered (recovery point objective). Research what your actual recovery time would be versus what you have identified as your recovery time objective for your critical systems. If you are within the time frame, document your plan and you have a plan that works for your organization. If not, your organization is at risk and should investigate its options.
Improvements in technology can greatly benefit businesses in meeting these objectives. Recovery solutions such as hot-spare and image-based solutions – that in the past had been reserved for the deep pockets of larger enterprises – are now affordable for the SMB market. Have you looked at these technologies lately? Are you confident in your organization’s disaster preparedness plans? If you answered no to either of these questions, please contact us toll-free at 888-600-4560, via email at info@coldencompany.com, or on Twitter and let us help you identify technologies that may fit your needs.