Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan

Close the gap between your DR capabilities and service continuity requirements.

Join Now

If you're already a member, click here to log in.

Major Business Pain Points

Any time a natural disaster or major IT outage occurs, it increases executive awareness and internal pressure to create a disaster recovery plan (DRP).
Traditional DRP templates are onerous and result in a lengthy, dense plan that might satisfy auditors but will not be effective in a crisis.
The myth that a DRP is only for major disasters leaves organizations vulnerable to more common incidents.
The growing use of outsourced infrastructure services has increased reliance on vendors to meet recovery timeline objectives.

create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan-Pain Points

Recommendations

Key Points

At its core, disaster recovery (DR) is about ensuring service continuity. Create a plan that can be leveraged for both isolated and catastrophic events.
Remember Murphy’s Law. Failure happens. Focus on improving overall resiliency and recovery, rather than basing DR on risk probability analysis.
Cost-effective DR and service continuity starts with identifying what is truly mission critical so you can focus resources accordingly. Not all services require fast failover.

Approach

create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan-Recommendations

Define appropriate objectives for service downtime and data loss based on business impact.
Document an incident response plan that captures all of the steps from event detection to data center recovery.
Create a DR roadmap to close gaps between current DR capabilities and recovery objectives.

Subscribe to Premium

Methodology and Tools

Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out about the persistent myths of DR planning, review the methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan – Executive Brief
Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan – Phases 1-4
Case Study: Practical, Right-Sized DRP
Case Study: Practical, Right-Sized DRP – Healthcare Example

1. Define DRP scope, current status, and dependencies

Start with a good understanding of current state and system dependencies.

Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan – Phase 1: Define DRP Scope, Current Status, and Dependencies
DRP Maturity Scorecard
DRP Project Charter Template

2. Conduct a BIA to determine acceptable RTOs and RPOs

Set recovery objectives.

Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan – Phase 2: Conduct a BIA to Determine Acceptable RTOs and RPOs
DRP Business Impact Analysis Tool
Legacy DRP Business Impact Analysis Tool
DRP BIA Scoring Context Example

3. Identify and address gaps in the recovery workflow

Outline the recovery workflow and address risks and gaps.

Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan – Phase 3: Identify and Address Gaps in the Recovery Workflow
DRP Recovery Workflow Template (PDF)

DRP Recovery Workflow Template (Visio)

DRP Roadmap Tool
DRP Recap and Results Template
DRP Workbook

4. Complete, extend, and maintain your DRP

Identify and prioritize major initiatives to streamline recovery.

Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan – Phase 4: Complete, Extend, and Maintain Your DRP
Case Study: Practical, Right-Sized DRP

5. Appendix

The following tools and templates are also included as part of this blueprint to use as needed to supplement the core steps above:

DRP Incident Response Management Tool
DRP Vendor Evaluation Questionnaire
DRP Vendor Evaluation Tool
Severity Definitions and Escalation Rules Template
BCP-DRP Fitness Assessment

All resources on this page are provided to Cyber Leadership Hub members under license from third parties including Info-Tech Research Group Inc, a global leader in providing IT research and advice.