| Disaster can strike at any moment within your | | | | Testing your plan |
| business, which is why you should have a good | | | | There are many different disasters that can take |
| disaster recovery plan in place. Without a good | | | | place. You may have a fire in the building, you |
| plan in place, then it is fair to say that your staff | | | | may have some sort of natural disaster such as |
| will be running around, wondering what to do next. | | | | an earthquake, or your entire data center can fail. |
| That is not a situation you want to find yourself | | | | Although data centers are very reliable and it is |
| in. You want business to continue as usual while | | | | rare that they fail, it does tend to be the most |
| your company figures out how to figure out a | | | | common failure. Suddenly, employees are unable |
| particular disaster. Whether that is data center | | | | to retrieve customer information. That is why |
| failure or a natural disaster, you have to have a | | | | you need to check the following with your |
| plan in place so that you don't lose your | | | | disaster recovery plan: |
| customers. You would be surprised at how much | | | | -The feasibility of your recovery plan |
| money a company can lose in just a matter of | | | | -Making sure that backup facilities are feasible |
| days from when a disaster strikes. | | | | -Ensure the adequacy of the procedures and |
| When you have a disaster recovery plan in place, | | | | make sure teams are working on their part |
| you are doing what is necessary to make sure | | | | -Ensure the training of team managers |
| that your business can serve customers to the | | | | -Providing all employees with the means to |
| best of its ability. Even if it cannot service all, | | | | maintain and update the recovery plan |
| serving some can make an incredible difference. A | | | | -Making sure an acceptable amount of time to |
| company that does not have a disaster recovery | | | | recover has been established |
| plan in place is a company that can go out of | | | | -Ensure that every location within the company is |
| business in a heartbeat. This is because their | | | | prepared |
| customers were not aware of the situation and | | | | -Verify the cost to perform the test to ensure |
| thought the company was giving them bad | | | | that the budget is adhered to |
| service. | | | | From there, you need the entire staff to go into |
| Types of testing | | | | "pretend" mode and simulate that a disaster is |
| There are several different types of testing that | | | | really occurring. For example, the data center |
| you can use when testing a disaster recovery | | | | failure recovery plan may be the first one that |
| plan. You can do walkthrough testing, simulation | | | | you want to test. Now, if you are on a strict |
| testing, checklist testing, full interruption testing, | | | | budget when conducting your test, you may have |
| and parallel testing. | | | | to work on testing multiple scenarios at once so |
| Many companies decide to go ahead with a | | | | that all you have to do is one test. You may |
| checklist to then proceed to a simulation test. The | | | | require two if you have a lot of issues that need |
| simulation test is important so that employees | | | | fixed. Once they are fixed, it is very important to |
| know what to do when a disaster actually occurs. | | | | test them to make sure they will work. Once you |
| The company may decide to do a full interruption | | | | have determined that you have a solid plan, you |
| test while doing a simulation test, but that really | | | | can be rest assured that you'll be in good shape |
| depends on if the company has the type of | | | | when a disaster actually occurs. |
| budget that will allow for this type of testing. | | | | |