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Running head: DISASTER RECOVERY PLAN 1
DISASTER RECOVERY PLAN 4
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Introduction
A disaster recovery plan is considered a formal document created and formulated by an organization where in, it has got more precise instructions on the various ways to respond to any emergency incident in the organization. Such emergency incidences include natural disasters, cyber-attacks, power outages, and any other kind of disaster that is having man origin, such as fire. The plan is a document in itself; it contains the various methodologies of decimalizing the adverse effects of a disaster occurrence, thus helping the organization resume as fast as possible. The disruptions that can be caused by any disaster most of the time lead to revenue loss, customer satisfaction, and even the company and product brand damage. Thus any management team needs to ensure that they have a disaster recovery plan that will benefit the organization (Gustin, 2007).
Purpose and scope of the plan
The primary purpose of a disaster recovery plan at any organization is to provide assistance that helps the organization deal with any emergency recovery methods in case a disaster happens. It’s also noted to offer various safety measures that individuals and the organization can take if the disaster happens, such as the areas where people can exit in case of a disaster attack such as fire. Also, it offers the wellness of the people working in an organization by providing the various measures put up by the organization to ensure that the workers’ wellbeing can be considered. It’s also has a primary aim of minimizing the percentage of the damages that can occur in a disaster occurrence and even the losses that can occur, such as the loss of lives which has a probability of so happening when a disaster occurs. More so, the plan helps minimize the various difficulties that the organization comes across in the process of recovering from the calamity that might have happened (Toigo, 2002).
Furthermore, the disaster recovery plan plays a significant role in minimizing the impact of economic, financial challenges that an organization may experience when dealing with the disaster. The plan also offers other related approaches that the organization can use to prevent certain disasters that have the probability of occurring thus keeping them blocked from so doing. These include plans like hiring security personnel to offer security, thus preventing terrorism attacks. The management team typically has various responsibilities, one of them being implementing the disaster recovery plan. Also, they have the role of offering various lessons to the disaster team in an organization, thus creating awareness of the various measures that individuals can take in case a disaster happens (Gustin, 2007).
More so, the management is the one that approves a disaster recovery plan based on how effective they have found it. For a disaster recovery plan to be approved, then it should be able to predict and determine the vulnerability of the essential services that can be interrupted. It can also be at high risk of being attacked, thus outlining some of the most effective measures that can be taken to prevent the happenings of it. The disaster recovery measures that it suggests should be bound within the organization’s goals, mission, and vision. This helps achieve the best measure that the management proves that they are most important for an organization. The contingency plan is also widely used by the management as t provides cover for the long-term and the most current needs that a data center in an organization may need (Rothstein, 2007).
Roles and the responsibilities
There are several responsibilities which the disaster recovery team, management, and many more essential individuals that are very relevant when carrying out the disaster recovery procedures. It’s always recommendable that the team that responds to a disaster should be very much flexible at all aspects, thus ensuring that the plans have been fully implemented and in a much more effective manner. The members should show full-time commitment to it so that the plan can be implemented fully, evaluation done, and the response done to the evaluation results. The organization management should ensure that the team that is implementing the disaster recovery plan should ensure that they have been provided with all the needed resources, thus executing the plans fully. It should be noted that the plan is successfully implemented when the response team has been provided with all the resources that are in need for full implementation of the program (Gustin, 2007).
The steering committee
This is a group of individuals like the representative of each department in an organization, such as the information systems, technical support team, operations support team, and many more. These are the ones that are very much important when there is an emergency in the organization of a particular disaster as they help to minimize the effects. They also offer fellow members in the departments the knowledge they gained from the lessons they attended on disaster plans recovery, thus the members having some tactics of responding to a disaster happening (Gustin, 2007).
The project team
This is considered the group of members from the different entities in an organization in which a plan is being formulated. The team also entails the internal audit personnel who carries out the auditing of the financial reports, thus predicting the expenses that can be incurred in case of a disaster plan being implemented. The team members are the ones who carry out the evaluation, testing, and maintenance on the recovery methods that they find are most important in recovering from a disaster. Coordination of the activities involved in developing the recovery plans and the procedure for their implementation (Wallace & Webber, 2011).
Information system support team
The members of this group are the ones most responsible for the tele-commination systems of an organization. They help solve problems related to network error, resolve the information system, database administration, information security issues resolving, and many more others. They also play an essential role in developing the organization’s data recovery plans when a disaster has attacked the information sector. This makes the organization lose the most vital information, especially the financial information, which has the details of the transaction done each day (Gustin, 2007).
The incident response
When carrying out an incident response in an organization, its highly recommendable for there to be developed the best emergency response procedures, methodologies, and backup criteria. The people present in any organization should be signaled of any abnormal situations that have struck the organization through the most convenient methods such as through the alarms. These are very common to find in the organization are most reliable in communicating some dangers observed in any organization. The disaster recovery personnel should give direction to the individuals on the best get through that can be used in case an emergency such as a terror attack happens. The recovery team should also assess the damages caused by a disaster occurrence, such as the loss of life, data stored in hard copy, etc. The team also alerts the management of a disaster’s presence and even to the critical stakeholders for an organization’s operation (Toigo, 2002).
The plan activation
When the incident response has been undertaken, the group assesses whether a disaster recovery plan should be done. A particular plan is used in launching the plan for which its launched according to the hierarchical management arrangement. The plan’s determination is done by the whole team so that the best plan found can be the one implemented. Communication to the disaster recovery team should be done using the most effective method, i.e., through messages and calls, as they are the most reliable. Effective population communication, the alarms, and the usage of the speaker’s technique are also found to be more effective as they are readily available and affordable. When a disaster recovery plan is not found to be effective by the management, then they should follow the proper procedures for turning it down. During the implementation, there should be elements of teamwork and assistance by the responsible individuals, thus the recovery plan being executed fully (Wallace & Webber, 2011).
Document history
In any organization, the disaster recovery just before its put into action is revised by several people how the organization selects as a committee. This committee evaluates the plan based on the organization’s operation, the most likely disaster to happen, and the possible solution to the various methods that the plans recommend to be used in the recovery procedures. The committee is the one that gives the managerial and the organization at large the assurance that the plan is more effective and what is the estimated cost that can be incurred on its execution. Then the recovery plan is distributing to the various sector in an organization that most needs it so that they can be are of the basics approaches that have been suggested and approved to be used in the recovery process (Gustin, 2007).
The pandemic planning checklist is essential for it to be included in the recovery plan, stored in the electronic media formats, and even the hard copy. In the year 2017, the recovery plan was restructured, then the second reason on it was done in the year 2018, and the latest revision to be done was in the year 2020. The reason as to why the disaster recovery plan keeps on being revised after some duration is that there can be developed more other options of dealing with disaster happening. These revisions also help in dealing with the various identified weaknesses that the plan could have, thus obtaining a more preferred plan of recent time. This is based on the results obtained when the plan was being implemented (Rothstein, 2007).
Procedures
The managerial team is the one that approves the disaster recovery plan depending on the assessment done on it. The superiors in the small organizations are the ones who ensure the implementation of the programs, typically through the various procedures that have been stated by the experts formulating it. The recovery group can enhance the recovery program by employing the technology used, such as IT departments. This makes it easy to access the recovery plans and thus a more straightforward and fast method of offering the recovery procedures (Rothstein, 2007).
In conclusion, a disaster recovery plan needs to be taken under various testing and evaluation to be identified as suitable to apply. The management and the organization’s employees should be familiarly used with the most basic concepts of behaving in caser of a disastrous occurrence. Better methods of protecting the organization’s data and information should be developed, thus enabling a much better recovery process. The disaster recovery plan is essential as it provides much more solutions towards dealing with existing disasters or the ones that have a probability of occurring to have an ore better approach developed of dealing with it.
References
Gustin, J. F. (2007). Disaster & recovery planning: A guide for facility managers. The Fairmont Press.
Rothstein, P. J. (2007). Disaster recovery testing: Exercising your contingency plan. Rothstein Associates.
Snedaker, S., & Rima, C. (2014). Business continuity/Disaster recovery plan development. Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning for IT Professionals, 369-411.
https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-410526-3.00007-6
Toigo, J. W. (2002). Disaster recovery planning: Preparing for the unthinkable. Prentice Hall.
Wallace, M., & Webber, L. (2011). The disaster recovery handbook: A step-by-step plan to ensure business continuity and protect vital operations, facilities, and assets. Amacom Books.