How to Create a Server Disaster Recovery Plan

A server disaster recovery plan can help a business reduce costly downtime, preserve invaluable data, and get back up and running faster after unexpected events. Read on to learn how you can create a comprehensive plan that will leave your company prepared for inevitable problems.

What Is a Server Disaster Recovery Plan?

A server disaster recovery plan is critical in today’s information-dependent society, where companies need to maintain overall business continuity to stay profitable. For any business, whatever its size, downtime is a costly problem that affects the bottom line. A server disaster recovery plan is a written outline detailing how a business will respond to a variety of disasters (accidental or intentional) which can lead to technology downtime.

This type of plan generally includes strategies for timely restoration of data, hardware and vital applications. It will also assign different responsibilities and roles to various staff members and departments. Ideally, the plan should also involve some amount of risk assessment and outline ways to mitigate risk.

A disaster recovery plan shouldn’t just be limited to catastrophic data failures such as a whole data center going offline after a natural disaster. It should also consider prolonged DDoS attacks which can force critical customer systems offline. A good plan should also consider equipment failure and any other instances which can cause downtime for a business.

Among the most common potential perils that should be considered include:

• Data Loss
• Network outage
• Hardware failure
• Natural disasters
• Water leaks
• Power outages
• Prolonged cyber attacks

The more detailed the server disaster recovery plan and the more scenarios contemplated, the faster a business will be able to get back up and running. Contrarily, the less time and attention a company gives to disaster planning, the more likely they are to endure lengthy downtime and, in some instances, catastrophic data loss.

Building a Server Disaster Recovery Plan

Since every business is unique, they often need their own custom disaster recovery plans. That said, these basic fundamentals are the backbone of any well-conceived strategy:

Identify All Critical Operations

Your first step is to clearly identify which operations are absolutely critical to the function of your business. These would be processes and capabilities that your company wouldn’t be able to function without.

Evaluate Disaster Scenarios

Work with different departments to identify potential disaster scenarios. Rank your priorities and determine your immediate and long-term recovery objectives and timelines.

Create a Communication Plan

Develop a plan of action that assigns roles to specific people and departments.

Develop a Data Backup and Recovery Plan

A good plan involves solutions for fixing issues and instructions on how to contain a developing situation. It also includes methods for monitoring for future intrusions.

Test Your Disaster Plan

Test regularly to make sure there aren’t any gaps in your plan. Strengthen with additional steps if necessary.

Preparing for the Inevitable

Virtually every modern business will experience downtime at some point. In many instances, it could be caused by something as big as a natural disaster or something as small as employee error. Far too often, it occurs due to malicious actors.

Every day, countless businesses are targeted by hackers and opportunistic malware. Even if you run a small enterprise, you should not expect to be ignored by hackers, who frequently target smaller businesses because they are often poorly defended. What’s more, even if you do have a secure operation with firewalls and encryption, you’re taking a huge risk if you haven’t invested in a plan to get your company back online after an unexpected interruption in business operations.

Having an Ally

To maintain overall business continuity, it helps to have a partner who can streamline your disaster recovery efforts. Backing up customer environments is a key part of Fisher Technology’s best practices. We require at least a minimum backup plan for every managed IT client. We also have top-tier extended partners that allow us to rapidly move from recovery to availability. Our experts can help you combine backup, disaster recovery and cloud mobility into one cost-effective service. Contact us to learn more.