Enterprise Hosting Disaster Recovery Plans & Checklist

Disasters are an unfortunate part of life. There are few things worse than losing your enterprise-grade website/application to a fire or other form of disaster.

However, one of them is discovering that your Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) is woefully inadequate. You stand to lose many hours and days of generating income without a solid, reliable, and efficient DRP. In this article we will go over the necessary measures which make up an effective Disaster Recovery Plan for your Enterprise site.

What Is A Disaster Recovery Plan?

A Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) is a document that outlines how your organization will recover from a worst-case disaster scenario. All businesses, regardless of industry or size, need a serious DRP. Having a plan ironed out and tested can make all the difference when trouble rears its ugly head.

For websites at the Enterprise level, a DRP is especially important. Enterprise websites are typically more complex and require more resources than their smaller counterparts. As a result, they are also more vulnerable to disasters due to the monetary and time commitment needed to spin up your replacement infrastructure.

A comprehensive DRP for an enterprise website should include the following elements:

Business Impact Analysis (BIA)

This is the first step in developing a DRP. The business impact analysis (BIA) identifies the critical systems and data that the organization relies on to operate.

Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

The RTO is the maximum amount of time that an organization can be without its critical systems and data before it suffers significant financial or operational losses.

Recovery Point Objective (RPO)

The RPO is the maximum amount of data loss that an organization can tolerate before bankruptcy becomes inevitable.

Disaster Recovery Strategy

The disaster recovery strategy outlines how the organization will recover from a disaster. The strategy should include a list of steps that will be taken to restore the organization’s critical systems and data.

Disaster Recovery Testing

Make sure you are testing your disaster recovery plan. The plan should be vetted regularly to ensure that it is a functional recovery path forward. Testing should be conducted at least once a year to prove out its feasibility and effectiveness.

The Enterprise Disaster Recovery Checklist

We have put together a point by point checklist of tasks which should be adopted as part of your enterprise website disaster recovery plan. These steps should go a long way to help your business recover from any type of disaster, natural or otherwise, as fast and efficient as possible.

#1: Identify Critical Systems and Data

The first step in developing a DRP is to identify the critical systems and data that the organization relies on to operate. Critical systems are those that are essential for the organization to continue to function. Critical data is data that is essential for the organization to continue to operate.

#2: Set RTO and RPO

Once the critical systems and data have been identified, the organization needs to set both RTO and RPO goals. The RTO is the maximum amount of time that the organization can be without its critical systems and data before it suffers significant financial or operational losses. The RPO is the maximum amount of data loss that the organization can tolerate.

#3: Choose A Disaster Recovery Strategy

There are several different types of disaster recovery strategies. The most appropriate strategy will vary depending on the organization’s specific needs. Some common disaster recovery strategies include, in order of low to highest costs are:

Cold Site: Low Cost, Slow Recovery

A cold site is a non-replicated environment that is located in a different location. In the event of a disaster, the organization will need to restore data and applications from backup tapes to the an entirely new set of infrastructure at the cold site. These plans first start with recovering and setting up servers before eventually restoring your critical data to those new servers. There is a significant amount of downtime associated with cold site plans with the trade-off of little to no additional monthly costs.

Hot Site: High Cost, Fast Recovery

A truly high-availability solution. A hot site is a fully replicated environment that is located in a different geographical region. In the event of a disaster, the organization can failover to the hot site immediately and suffer little downtime as a result. Hot sites are the quickest path to recovery, but running a secondary self-sustaining environment along side your primary location has significant financial and operational costs.

Warm Site: Medium Cost & Recovery Time

A warm site is a partially replicated environment that in another location. In the event of a disaster, the organization will need to restore its critical data and applications to the warm site. Warm sites are the happy middle ground between hot and cold, which can significantly reduce the financial costs when compared to a hot site. However, the trade off is a larger window of downtime before the organization is back on its feet.

#4: Develop A Disaster Recovery Plan

Once a disaster recovery strategy has been chosen, the organization needs to develop a disaster recovery plan. The disaster recovery plan should document the steps that will be taken to restore the organization’s critical systems and data in the event of a disaster.

#5: Test The Disaster Recovery Plan

A mandatory part of the process, testing makes or breaks your road to recovery. It’s the only true way of assuring your DRP is viable as written, with minimal hiccups. Test and retest the plan on the regular. This ensures that it is an effective solution. Testing should be conducted yearly, at minimum.

Additional Tips

Please consider the following additional tips we have collected for developing an effective enterprise website disaster recovery plan:

Get Buy-in From Senior Management

Disaster recovery is a complex and expensive undertaking. It is important to get buy-in from senior management before starting the process. Composing a list of the tough questions that need to be answered by senior management to aid in the decision process for when a DRP should be invoked can make all the difference in the journey to recovery.

Involve All Stakeholders

The disaster recovery plan should involve any and all company stakeholders, including your IT staff, business units, and legal counsel. Get everyone onboard with the plan to eliminate potential hiccups in the process that one stakeholder might relate to more than others. This is good practice for making sure your DRP is well-rounded.

Keep The Plan Up-To-Date

As your organization grows and changes throughout a given calendar year, so should your DRP. Maintain up-to-date procedures as the organization’s environment changes and revisit testing your DRP in any quarter that had significant changes to your infrastructure.

Communicate The Plan To Employees

The disaster recovery plan should be communicated to all employees so that they know what to expect and how to proceed during the recovery process. Employees should be able to leap into action relatively quickly in order to speed up recovery.

Conclusion

A disaster recovery plan is an essential part of any website of all sizes. A comprehensive DRP will help ensure your organizations longevity, allowing recovery from any calamity. A good plan is designed to minimize the overall impact on the business and expedites the time to recovery.