Standard XMLNews for the Disaster Recovery Planning Template
The Disaster Recovery Planning Template News feed is an XML news feed that you can subscribe to and re-publish on your web site or blog. The only requirement that you need to meet is that the feed is included with no modifications and that the links within the feed are retained as is.
If you wish to subscribe to this news feed the option that you have is:
Disaster Recovery Plan Articles
May 9th, 2013
- more info
With Offices Closed, Boston Firms Implement Disaster Plans
April 17th, 2013
A handful of Boston-based companies have implemented disaster recovery plans, primarily due to access restrictions as the FBI and Boston police investigate Mondays terrorist bombings at the Boston Marathon.
Five companies with offices on Boylston Street, where the bombings occurred, have declared disasters and are implementing plans for offsite operations. A number of customers have moved staff to a business continuity center in Marlborough, Mass.
One company that said it had employees working off-site in Marlborough was MFS Investment Management, which was among a number of investment firms in the Boylston Street area that had employees either working from home or from business recovery facilities.
- more info
Disaster Plans need to take Social Media into account
April 11th, 2013
If the organization accepts the use of social media as part of its business operations, it may elect to incorporate social media processes in its emergency communications policies and procedures for both disaster recovery and business continuity situations. For example, in addition to an automated notification system that sends emergency messages and alerts to employees, the company may also designate staff to post messages on various social media sites to extend the effective reach of the message.
How do you balance the business continuity disaster recovery risk and investment equation? Is the potential risk greater than the investment? The facts are:
- 43% of companies experiencing disasters never reopen, and 29% close within two years.
- 93% of businesses that lost their data center for10 days went bankrupt within one year.
- 40% of all companies that experience a major disaster will go out of business if they cannot gain access to their data within 24 hours.
Based on the nature of the incident, however, company management may wish to confer with its internal communications staff as well as its emergency response team to determine if a message going out on social media is desirable, and will not have a negative impact on the firm's reputation and ability to operate. This strategy is particularly important considering that media outlets frequently monitor social media sites for newsworthy stories. Be sure to incorporate social-media-based policies and procedures into business continuity (BC) and DR plans.
- more info
Single vs. multiple recovery sites
March 29th, 2013
When there are disruptions in the service and the expected service levels are at risk, another metric standard is used: recovery time. The standard defines the allowable time between when the clock starts and stops for the disaster recovery and business continuity processes. If 0-4 hours recovery time is acceptable, then disaster recovery and business continuity should be started at least one to two hours prior to the maximum recovery (four hours).
The benefits of having multile relocation sites is that you have more flexibility and eliminate the potential that a single event takes out both your primary and backup locations. Even if that doesn't happen, multiple sites allows you to spread your risk and your support services like utilities, communications and even food/lodging if required.
The drawbacks in this type of disaster recovery plan are primarily cost and complexity. Trying to maintain support for multiple sites can become difficult and time consuming. Think of the effort of managing, testing and activating a single backup location. You can double that for each additional recovery site you have.
- more info
Core backup and recovery concerns
March 12th, 2013
CIOs and IT Managers need to consider manadated compliance requirements
- more info
- Question that need to be answered are:
- Is our data safe in transit and at rest?
- What prevents hackers from gaining access to our data?
- Is our data properly handled, stored, and deleted?
- Who can access our data?
- What are the benchmark measurements?
- Is our data backup strategy compliant?
- Will our recovery be successful?
