Disaster Recovery Procedure

Disaster Recovery Procedure (DRP)

Disaster Recovery Procedure (DRP) is a clearly documented set of instructions on how to re-build or recover an IT system in the event of a disaster.  

Scenario's can range from malicious employee sabotage, virus outbreak, lightening or even toxic chemical spillage.  How long will it take your IT department or supplier to resurrect your critical business systems.

At its simplest a DRP will start from bare metal restore however: (i) where will hardware be sourced and over what time frame (ii) will it involve a second build after the original hardware is returned, (iii) what about inter-system dependencies, (iv) how long to restore from backup media, (v) where do you get hold of the latest backup, (vi) is technical support aware if its out-of-hours?

DRP is far more than just a check of whether your backups are working.

DRP is normally created as a background project and its real power comes from doing a walk-through trial recovery of systems when there is no pressure.   Gaps in knowledge and issues of access are highlighted.  The whole process, step by step can be timed to provide a benchmark measure for management.  

DRP is a basic requirement in Sarbanes Oxley Audits which provides validation that such procedures are in place, are tested and management have awareness over this.

Our senior consulting team has years of experience guiding the development and testing of DRP in both small and large organisations.   We urge all our customers to create their own DRP and can provide outside guidance on this ensuring its done to a pre-qualified standard.

Please contact us to discuss your current Disaster Recovery Procedures and allow us to show you our methodology for building a certifiable DRP