Veritas issue five-point disaster recovery plan
Veritas issue five-point disaster recovery plan
Storage software provider Veritas Software has issued five first steps for IT organisations faced with the prospect of recovering from a disaster.
The move is in response to a recent independent study of more than 850 IT professionals worldwide conducted for Veritas in which 47 percent of companies say the main criterion they use to calculate how much they spend on disaster recovery is the financial risk associated with a potential disaster. These same IT professionals estimated that an act of terrorism (which they indicated would be most costly for their organisation) could cost an average of US$115 million.
The five steps to ensure minimal impact from a potential disaster – according to Veritas – are as follows:
1) Contact your people. Every organisation needs a way to get its people rallied around the recovery. A method of communication, such as satellite phones, that is independent from unavailable phone lines or cellular services is a good choice. For employees who aren't directly involved in the data recovery process, provide a hotline where they can get updates so you can focus on the task at hand.
2) Quickly locate your disaster recovery plan. Keep multiple copies of the plan off site, such as in your car, your home, even your briefcase. Keep one copy with your off-site storage provider. More than 60 percent of companies surveyed in the same study keep their disaster recovery plan in just one location - at the main data centre, which may pose a problem if the main data centre is unavailable.
3) Contact your vendors and enlist their help. Many companies have never had to actually implement their disaster recovery plan. In fact, according to the study, just one-third of organisations surveyed have had to execute their plan for real. If you are faced with implementing your plan, call in the experts for assistance. If you're recovering data from tape, your off-site disaster recovery storage provider should bring the tapes to a recovery site, and your backup software vendor can help recover the archived data.
4) Bring up your secondary site. Many companies subscribe to a secondary disaster recovery "hot site" for use with other subscribers in the event of a business interruption. The hot site will fill up fast in the event of a major event such as the recent power outage in the north eastern United States, so be sure to call and declare a disaster as early as possible. To ensure availability of a secondary site, many organisations equip their own secondary data centre for disaster recovery purposes and can switch operations from the affected site to the secondary site without disruption to the business, helping to minimise impact on customers and partners.
5) Identify an emergency secondary site. If the secondary site you intended to use isn't available or functional, get creative. Hotel ball rooms or conference centres equipped with high-bandwidth connections and air conditioning offer adequate resources to begin a recovery when all else fails.
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