Free Management Dissertations - The Following Example Shall Take An Existing Company And Work Through The
The following example shall take an existing company and work through the varied scenarios related to the preparation and planning of a comprehensive disaster recovery plan, as well as the risk factors and associated areas involved.
Chapter 1 - Introduction
Having a well thought out and sound disaster recovery plan is essential to protect the well being of the organization. It must be clarified that in utilizing disaster recovery and business continuity within the context of this discussions and example entails an understanding of how said terminology is used. Disaster recovery is concerned with providing the means for users to reacquire information that has been made unavailable as a result of varied circumstances (Augustine, 1995). The preceding differs from business continuity is an organization sense in that disaster recovery from an IT department perspective entail occurrences such as the following:
When turning on the computer the message ‘C: Hard Drive not Recognized’ appears, indicating that the hard disk has failed, taking with it all of your data, operating system and applications.
While waiting for your flight, your laptop disappears.
A fire or other disaster occurs at your office building and you don not have a laptop loaded with information from your PC.
Your bargain Internet Service Provider’s system is unavailable and you have a report that must be retrieved from your storage base before a meeting in 1 hour.
A hurricane hits your data center in Miami and operations will be down for the next 6 to 10 days.
The preceding are examples of disaster recovery scenarios relative to the availability of information. The reality is that circumstances and natural events cannot be prevented, only planned for, and in the case of the aforementioned, as well as almost any scenario one could conceive, save for a calamity affecting most of the planet, effective disaster recovery techniques can be employed. Webster’s Dictionary defines ‘disaster’ as:
any happening that causes great harm or damage, serious or sudden misfortune; calamity (Webster’s New World Dictionary, 2004)
As is the case with any business area, things are a question of cost. The cost to plan, implement and set up redundant systems, procedures and methodologies that enable data to be recovered. More importantly, the foregoing entails active adherence to procedures backing up and maintaining systems that are established and or put into place (Australian National Audit Office, 2000), as an effective disaster recovery plan is only as effective as the measures being employed to keep data protection methods current.
