When you design your data center disaster recovery plan, your main objective is to safeguard your organization’s investment in data, information technology, and staff. Whatever plans you have as a disaster recovery strategy, you need to make sure that they are flexible and scalable to handle a wide variety of scenarios. It is important that the copies of the data recovery plan are readily available at the workplace, as well as offsite.
An Operational Risk Assessment
Operational Risk Assessment is the most important activity while formulating a disaster recovery plan for your data center. This process helps you figure out key operating components, which include work space, location, power backup, HVAC, network infrastructure, security, and fire protection of the entire facility.
Make sure you have a list of all internal and external data center assets. This will also include the list of third-party suppliers, resources, as well as stakeholders.
You need to identify a list of emergency response teams who can respond immediately during disruption in your data center. You also need to take note of their level of training, especially on their emergency response capabilities.
The development team involved in creating a data center disaster recovery plan must collaborate with different IT teams, including the internal technology team and network administrators. Such a corporation that involves inputs from different teams, who use the data center’s facilities on regular basis, contribute in a smooth disaster recovery planning process.
Backup Sites
Another important element in drafting a disaster recovery plan is to ensure that you have an off-site location where the data recovery could take place. This location is your backup site. In case of any unfortunate event, a backup site is where you can restore all the data.
Your disaster recovery plan should also include ways to obtain the necessary hardware and software for operations at the backup site. Look for a professionally-managed backup site, to ensure it will already have everything that you’ll need.
Getting Back to Normal
Your restored data center has to be equipped with the necessary restoration hardware and software. It’s important that you conduct tests of the recovered assets and data, to validate their operation.
At MCIS, we understand the importance of a data center disaster recovery plan. Our experts don’t just help our customers create their disaster recovery plan, we also visit them on a regular basis for routine maintenance, to ensure that our recovery plans meet the needs of their organization.