White Paper: The 5 Critical Steps For An Effective Disaster Recovery Plan

In today's climate, most enterprises maintain some form of business continuity plan. Business continuity plans are designed to provide a way for an enterprise to continue business operations in the event of a catastrophic disaster, such as a flood, an earthquake, or a widespread power outage, that shuts down business operations at one or more primary locations. Business continuity plans cover information technology (IT) infrastructure recovery, people issues that must be dealt with when business operations must be restarted at a remote location, and physical infrastructure issues, such as re-establishing telecommunications, ensuring physical security, and providing appropriate work areas at remote locations.

IT infrastructure recovery, sometimes referred to as disaster recovery (DR), addresses the issues involved with recovering computing equipment (servers, storage, etc.), data, and application services. DR provides a necessary foundation for business continuity plans, but is not a substitute for them. This white paper focuses on the key elements of creating an effective DR plan, and is appropriate for IT management as well as technical staff.