What is a Disaster Recovery Plan?
The recent 7.1 Ridgecrest earthquake of July 5, 2019, was a jolt that made businesses take notice. Disasters are never planned, and whenever something unpredictable happens, a business can shut down. A hurricane, tornado, flood, fire, flood, complete electrical grid failure, natural disaster or earthquake is a disaster but any type of event that stops a business from operating can bring financial ruin. It’s probably fair to say that creating a disaster recovery (DR) plan from scratch is a daunting task.
It’s essential for organizations to have a recovery plan in place due to power-related outages. A disaster recovery plan identifies the possible risks a business might face during a catastrophic event. It consists of the policies and procedures that are implemented, and without a plan, there is the potential for devastating recovery costs. The disaster recovery plan also includes proper precautions on how we can save the data from any disaster, this includes backing up the data in a different location.
Before a plan is implemented, you should perform a risk assessment to determine the critical needs of the business operations. Every State has safety requirements that a business should follow during an emergency. You should know the relevant regulations that address disaster recovery and describe those regulatory requirements in your plan.
Components to an effective disaster recovery plan
As you are performing a risk assessment, you need to make sure that your Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), UPS batteries, and/or Generator are fully functional. Equipment failure is among the top causes of a business power outage. Generator maintenance and testing are critical to the success of your backup power system.
Odyssey Power can help assist with regular resistance testing of your systems, and monitoring equipment. By implementing a preventative maintenance plan, we can maintain the backup power supply equipment supporting the critical infrastructure of your business.
- Create a plan and ensure your stakeholders/recovery team know how to react before, during and after a disaster.
- Ensure critical information is backed up on a regular schedule and the security of the back-up is secure offsite.
- Perform an accurate count of your technology inventory.
- Verify that you have a back-up power supply installed for your critical servers.
- The plan should set out the different types of scenarios and potential consequences for each type of risk.
- Perform an accurate count of your technology inventory.
- Verify that you have a back-up power supply installed for your critical servers.
- The plan should set out the different types of scenarios and potential consequences for each type of risk.
- Assess your risks, conduct regular audits, and potential business impacts.
- Check your fire prevention and safety systems.
- List primary contact names, numbers, responsibilities and contact details of the team that will coordinate and manage the recovery.
Odyssey Power can help work through your back-up power needs for your disaster recovery plan. For additional information on recovery planning, the US Department of Homeland Security website is a good resource.