Picture this: It’s a normal Monday morning, and you’re sipping your beloved coffee, ready to tackle the week. Suddenly, disaster strikes. Maybe it’s a cyberattack that locks you out of your systems, a small fire, a server crash or even a waterpipe that floods your server room. Your heart drops. What do you do? Where do you even begin?
If you have a solid disaster recovery plan in place, you’ll take a deep breath, follow the plan and get things back up and running. If not, well, let’s just say you might be in for an anxiety-filled, rough ride.
In this guide, we’ll walk through why disaster recovery planning is essential, how to get started and what to do when chaos hits. Think of it as your survival guide for the digital age.
Step 1: Accept That Disasters Are Inevitable — & That’s OK!
First things first: disasters happen. You can’t predict a flood, a cyberattack or a rogue employee accidentally deleting critical files. But you can be ready for almost anything that might occur.
The key threats to your data include:
- Natural disasters: Fires, floods, earthquakes — you name it
- Cyberattacks: Ransomware, hacking and the phishing scams that are lurking in the shadows
- Hardware failures: Servers crash, hard drives die — machines aren’t invincible
- Human errors: We all make mistakes, but some are more catastrophic than others
Once you accept that these risks are real, you can take proactive steps to make sure they don’t destroy your business.
Step 2: Build a Disaster Recovery Plan — Before You Actually Need It
Think of a disaster recovery plan as the proactive measures you put in place, hoping you never need them, as well as a step-by-step guide that you follow if something does happen. You hope you’ll never need it, but when disaster strikes, you’ll be grateful it exists.
Here’s what goes into a solid disaster recovery plan:
1. Identify what’s most important.
Not all data is created equally, and it can be cost prohibitive to back up everything in the same manner. If cost becomes a deterrent in any way, discern what all you need to back up and give critical data priority. You can even create different backup strategies using different methodologies for different systems and data.
Take a hard look at your systems and ask yourself:
- What data can we not afford to lose?
- Which systems are mission critical?
- How much downtime is acceptable before we’re in serious trouble?
There are different methodologies for redundancy and resiliency based on your needs.
2. Follow the 3-2-1 backup rule.
When it comes to backups, redundancy is king. Stick to this golden rule:
- Three copies of your data
- Two different storage types
- One off-site backup
If you’re relying on a single backup, you’re playing with fire — in some cases, quite literally.
3. Set recovery time (RTO) & recovery point objectives (RPO).
- RTO: How fast do you need to be back online? Four hours? Twenty-four hours? Even longer?
- RPO: How much time lapse of data loss can you tolerate? Spoiler: Less is better. Can you lose one hour? Twenty-four hours? A week?
These numbers will shape your recovery strategy.
Pro tip: While everyone wants to be back online and productive as soon as possible, set realistic goals and expectations that can actually be accomplished.
4. Choose the right tools & strategies for your needs.
You have options when it comes to backup and recovery solutions. These options are:
- Cloud-based disaster recovery (DRaaS)
- Automated backup software
- Redundant servers and automatic failover systems
Remember, redundant/failover systems are not backups. Please make sure you still have a good backup strategy in place even if you also have a redundant failover system in place. Pick the ones that align with your needs, budget and RTO/RPO expectations.
5. Have a communication plan.
Make sure that if disaster strikes, you are aware of who needs to know, who you need to assist you and how you can reach them. Having a written and clear communications plan ensures:
- Employees get instructions quickly
- Customers are reassured (not left in the dark)
- Experienced IT teams know their roles and responsibilities
- Vendors have clear directives for specific operations that are needed to get you back up and running
Pro tip: Make sure you have alternative communication methods ready in case your primary channels are down or unavailable, and don’t count on digital systems to extract these communication methods. For example, if you can’t email because your email server is down, have phone numbers readily available in your plan).
6. Test, test & test again.
A disaster recovery plan that has never been tested is about as useful as a parachute with holes in it. Schedule regular disaster recovery drills to:
- Identify weak points
- Make necessary adjustments
- Ensure everyone knows what to do
- Verify your backups (actually log in and check the data integrity)
Step 3: When Disaster Strikes, Follow These Steps
Alright, the worst has happened. Your systems are down, and panic is in the air. Stay calm and follow the plan.
1. Assess the situation.
- What happened?
- What systems are affected?
- What’s the estimated impact?
Before hitting the “restore” button to another server, understand the scope of the disaster. Sometimes it will be quicker to get the production systems back up and running than it will to download and restore to a secondary or new infrastructure.
2. Contain the damage.
If it’s a cyberattack, immediately isolate infected systems to prevent further spread and then contact your managed service provider or information technology (IT) team. Then, depending on the level of severity, contact your cyber insurance company.
If it’s a hardware failure or natural disaster, have a plan for the best course of action in order to get your systems up and running. Examples would be good service-level agreements for replacement parts or spare hardware based on your fault tolerances and RTO/RPO goals.
3. Restore your data.
If needed, use your backups to get things back online. This is why you invested in that 3-2-1 backup strategy — now it pays off!
4. Communicate updates.
Let employees and customers know what’s going on. Transparency is key to maintaining trust and keeping that great reputation that you have worked so hard to earn with your customers.
5. Evaluate & improve.
Once the dust settles, conduct a post-mortem analysis:
- What worked well?
- What could be improved?
- Were there any unexpected or hidden vulnerabilities?
Use these insights to strengthen your disaster recovery plan for the future.
Pro Tips to Stay Disaster-Ready
To make sure you’re never caught off guard, follow these best practices:
1. Automate your backups.
Set up frequent, automatic backups so you’re never scrambling to recover lost files. Make sure you are notified of exceptions for when files or backups fail. Make sure you verify your backups on a regular schedule.
2. Use cloud-based disaster recovery.
Cloud solutions make recovery faster, scalable and cost-effective. Don’t rely solely on physical backups.
3. Train your team.
Your IT staff aren’t the only ones responsible for disaster recovery. Educate employees on best practices to prevent data loss in the first place.
4. Strengthen your cybersecurity.
A disaster recovery plan won’t help if you’re constantly under attack. Implement the following:
- Endpoint protection
- Patch management
- Network security
- Multi-factor authentication (when available and applicable)
- Strong user and password policies
- Consistent cybersecurity training
5. Work with experts.
If you’re not confident in your disaster recovery strategy, bring in recovery experts to fine-tune your plan.
Pro tip: Please, please, please print your disaster recovery plan. I have seen multiple times when a company worked hard on a great plan, then the document with the plan was left on the server that wasn’t available! Print multiple copies and store them in different physical locations to ensure you have easy access when you need it.
Store it digitally in multiple places, as well, but make sure you update each as you review and make changes.
Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst
Disasters are unpredictable, but being unprepared is a choice. The businesses that survive catastrophes aren’t “lucky” — they are the ones that are prepared and had a rock- solid disaster recovery plan in place.
So, don’t wait until a disaster strikes to think about business continuity and recovery. Get started today, run your drills and make sure your data is always protected. Your future self will definitely thank you!
