By Linda Hetcher, Vice President Professional Services, Concurrent Technologies

Over 40% of the companies that lack a workable Disaster Recovery (DR) plan and who suffer a massive data loss due to a crisis, typically go out of business within two years of the destructive event. That’s a pretty frightening statistic from studies conducted by the publication, Disaster Recovery Journal.

In order to avoid becoming one of the 40%, all businesses need to understand what DR really encompasses. DR is a critical component of a company’s overall plan for business continuity. It addresses what should be done to safeguard information systems (hardware, software, data, and connectivity) in general, and specifically in the case of an unforeseen disaster. The mission of a DR plan and its implementation is to restore a company’s systems as part of the effort to return to business as usual as quickly as possible with minimal disruption.

There are 10 initial self-assessment questions that a business should answer in the development of a DR plan.

1). Do you back-up changes to your systems on at least a 24-hour basis?

2). Do you have back-ups of the various configurations for all your servers to recreate the current set-up of what is deemed mission critical? Are your back-ups stored off-site?

3). What are your data priorities? What needs to be restored first? How quickly?

4). Do you conduct periodic restores of your data (quarterly, bi-annually, annually)?

5). If you lose or can’t get to your servers, will you be able to acquire additional servers with enough capacity to run your business inside of 24 hours?

6). Are any of your back-up servers at a geographically-separate location?

7). Do you have guaranteed availability for your back-up servers?

8). Are there personnel available to install and manage key operations at a remote site within the appropriate time constraints?

9). Does the remote location have the pre-configured network in place? Are you sure your primary site and remote sites have adequate power, cooling, ventilation and accessibility?

10). Can your plan scale with your business?

From the questions listed above, there are activities that need to be done at the local level or on-premises at the company location, and others that are better served through the use of a remote location. Both considerations need to be included in the development of a complete, robust plan.

Building a DR plan involves examining the current environment and documenting vulnerabilities regarding platforms, network, security and application systems within the business. Recommendations to eliminate exposure should be focused on mitigating system failures, ensuring that file back-ups and restoration are reliable and that data is replicated, distributed and accessible using remote locations. Finally, all resources and activities to execute the plan, manage the system recovery and support a testing strategy need to be included in the investment a company makes in case of an extended business interruption.

However, it’s unfortunate that rather than taking charge or exercising preventive measures where their systems are concerned, many companies just hope for the best. A complete business assessment should include opportunity costs where a company honestly determines what is at risk if there isn’t a plan in place. What is their potential revenue loss, or what impact will it have on their customer satisfaction ratings if business is not restored in a relatively short time or if data is actually lost?

A DR plan and the commitment to test it periodically as well as keep it current is certainly a wise investment by any company no matter how large or small. In some instances, a DR plan could cost as little as a few thousand dollars depending on company goals and objectives. That’s a very small price to pay to ensure that your company remains in business for the long term.

Concurrent Technologies designs and develops custom Web-based interactive solutions for a diverse clientele ranging from Fortune 500 companies to non-profit organizations. In the business for over 18 years, Concurrent Technologies is a total solution provider (TSP) offering a range of services from e-business strategy to complete technology outsourcing. For more information, visit them at www.concurrenttechnologies.com or call (800) 345-3895.