The importance of having an Enterprise Continuity Business Continuity Plan
When things get *Boom* at night...
How about the times when things are booming throughout the day? This is every tech's worst nightmare:
"Uh it isn't able to boot."
"What do these smoky odors coming out from at the rear of the server signify?"
"We lost power to our building last night after which, when the electricity company switched on this morning, we heard a "pop" sound."
As you may have suspected that this quarter, we're going to discuss the topic of disaster recovery process, specifically, the financial implications that should be the driving force behind your disaster recovery strategy. Notice how I didn't say anything about fires/floods/lightening/hurricanes/tornados/earthquakes/etc? If you live in the area you reside, each of these is a real danger. I didn't discuss these because, statistics show that you're more likely be robbed and to have everything stolen than to have one of these to occur. Because servers are electronic and electronic devices, any of the common issues is much more likely to occur than theft.
In the beginning I thought I'd take on the definitions of
Backup is the process that creates numerous copies of information in order to ensure that data is not lost. Your backup should adhere to three rules of backup.
Disaster Recovery Plan The entire process to secure and protect your data. The Disaster Recovery (DR) comprises backups, testing of the backups as well as the security of the backups at the secure offsite storage space and the method of making use of backups to recover after a catastrophe. You require a feeling of peace.
Business Continuity Plan - The entire procedure to resume business. Business Continuity is considerably larger in terms of scope and covers an entire Disaster Recovery plan, plus the considerations of things such as insurance policies, the location your company will operate when something happens to your premises and how you get contact with the employees of your customers, clients and vendors, and how to can get your phone back up and running. It's the "a [insert disaster here] took place and we lost everything , what is the best way to get us back on track" plan. small business insolvency advice
We now have some fundamental definitions to base our work on In November, I wrote about three-2-1 rule of Backups and I'm not planning to discuss backups all the time.
The real-world situation disaster recovery plans are better off being referred to as "data Recovery Insurance Plans" and it's simpler to comprehend their significance. It is well-known that insurance is a necessity, and the greater protection or coverage you get the higher the cost of the policy. DR is an risk against. costs analysis which needs to be carried out. Before you begin developing the Disaster Recovery Plan, you must know the answers to three questions:
1. Should the server(s) was to go down and you lost connection to the data you stored, how would the cost per hour to your company? It would appear to be simple to determine however it's not always. There are a variety of factors that are typically used to calculate this figure.
a. What is the cost of your employee per hour when they can't work? If you employ 10 employees who earn $35k a year when you factor in benefits such as Social Security / Medicare / etc. Cost per hour could be between $210 and $210 per hour. We just completed the year, you could calculate your 2010 salary and add benefits and taxes, then divide by 2080 hours of work for a full year to come up with an approximate figure.
b. For every hour that you're down, how long do you need to get back up? Most of our clients operate in a limited way with handwriting their notes and when their system starts up, there's a lot of work that needs to be completed in order to catch up. Does it have a 1 to one ratio? Do you have down by 30 mins per hour? lower? Or is it 2 hours an hour? Do you have pay for overtime in order to be ahead?
C. What revenue or sales did you not record while the system was down? It should be as simple to say "I'm sorry, but our system is down. Can I contact you in the future when the issue arises?" And everything's fine. But what happens if your time also generates revenue? Attorneys aren't able to handle files that aren't billing. Accountants cannot access client data so there's no way to bill. Many doctors are unable to sign patients out or in or on their electronic medical records that means there's no billing. Financial institutions are time-sensitive to a fraction of a second! I've seen this figure fluctuate from $10 to $10,000 per hour.
D. Are there additional costs for your business? It is up to you to decide. You should give a reasonable number to the cost and then add it to the total cost of your hourly work.
2. How do you define your Recovery Point Objective (RPO)?
a. Recover Point Objective is a term used in the industry that refers to the frequency we are performing backups. Simply say, if I went to your workplace and stated "We restored everything and running, however I lost all the information in the past hour." What would that mean to your company? What if everything was on the last day? The last two days? The week that ended? insolvency advice for small businesses
b. How long will it take someone to restore lost data? Could it be recreated? If it's gone forever What will happen?
3. What is your goal for your recovery time?
a. Recover Time Objective is a different term used in the industry which refers to how long it will take before the system is fully up running and normal operations resume.
b. What if I said that we lost only 15 minutes of data, yet it took eight hours to get the staff back on track?
C. Do you think that's more or less than losing one day of data, but getting everyone back at work in a single hour?
In the past, I mentioned that your disaster recovery strategy should be based on your risk as opposed to. expense analysis. Once we know the risk you are willing to take, it is possible to find an appropriate solution priced to reduce the risk. Risk tolerance that is high usually results in lower-cost DR solutions, but in reality, the reverse is happens - lower risk tolerance typically results in a more expensive solution. Knowing the economic implications in your disaster plan the first step in achieving success!