It’s early Saturday morning, before dawn, and your cell phone rings. Bleary-eyed, you answer: it’s one of your weekend workers. They came in early to get some reporting done, but the network is down. They’re getting a serious error message, and it looks like about half your servers are down. In a panic, you run to your laptop and sure enough, your website is now malfunctioning. What do you do?

It’s something IT administrators worry about all the time: a network meltdown. They know it will probably happen someday, they just want to be ready when it does. That’s where IT disaster recovery plans can provide a little peace of mind.

What is an IT disaster recovery plan?

IT disaster recovery plans are procedures that a company implements in the case of a disrupted system or network. A proper IT disaster recovery plan will provide step-by-step operations for recovering data and resuming normal operations. Having an IT DR plan in place can help a small business minimize negative effects and get back on its feet faster.

What should my IT disaster recovery plan include?

Your small business IT disaster recovery plan should do the following:

• Identify critical IT systems and networks
• Set recovery time priorities
• Detail a process for restarting and reconfiguring
• Contain contact information for suppliers
• Have an emergency expert listed for disrupted system recovery

How do I start building an IT disaster recovery plan?

The first step towards building your IT recovery plan is to complete a full-scale risk assessment. This risk assessment should identify potential threats to your network and infrastructure, and find potential threats to the most important internal system elements. This assessment should split your network infrastructure into critical and non-critical elements, which will help determine which assets need to be recovered first.

Need help?

Building an IT DR plan can be overwhelming, which is why it is essential to have a partner who is familiar with IT disaster recovery. We have helped a number of clients establish better IT disaster recovery plans, and we would be glad to help you.