DR plans is something I hear about a lot, but I am of the opinion that IT are the wrong people to drive this. DR should be part of the business, and the business needs to tell IT what they need. IT cannot make the decision on what is and is not important. Do you know how much downtime you can tolerate as a business?
However the starting point I always make is the same. It is a DR plan of sorts, one that is already in place and that most staff will know at least the basics of. It is something that many overlook. Simply, what do you do in the event of a power failure? That will give you a good grounding as to what sort of things have to be considered. If the business has justified the outlay for a UPS that requires its own room and a generator the size of a small van in the car park, then you may have an idea of the kind of business continuity that may well be required. You then look at the location. What I would have in a plan for a company in the centre of London is very different to what I would have in the Scottish mountains. Although the fact that many people in IT don't know where to start is a good thing, because that means their business haven't made the decisions and it needs to be pushed back to them. For some reason it is thought that DR is just about IT, but it isn't. IT is just the facilitator. In effect, the business is their client and as such their business needs to make the decisions. Only then can IT turn round and say "we can do that, but it will cost you X", and it is seen as part of the overall business continuity, which will need to involve telephones, buildings, access etc. Although the best DR plan I have ever seen was summed up in two words - Go Home. They were located in central London, inside the former terrorist road block area. As such their entire IT environment was configured so that the business continuity plan didn't have to be activated, it was already in progress. Staff simply had to relocate. As long as they had the internet, they could operate - all Citrix based with the servers outside of London in a secure Data Centre called The Bunker. The company would only lose printers, but even that was managed, with everything going through an interim system for printing, so if the printers were not available the jobs queued indefinitely for printing later. Simon. -- Simon Butler MVP: Exchange, MCSE Sembee Ltd. e: [email protected] w: http://www.sembee.co.uk/ w: http://www.amset.info/ w: http://blog.sembee.co.uk/ Need cheap certificates for Exchange, compatible with Windows Mobile 5.0? http://CertificatesForExchange.com/<http://certificatesforexchange.com/> for certificates from just $23.99. Need a domain for your certificate? http://DomainsForExchange.net/<http://domainsforexchange.net/> Exchange Resources: http://exbpa.com/ From: John Aldrich [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 24 June 2010 19:01 To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: DR Plan Let me know what you find. We have a D/R plan, of sorts, but I think it's woefully inadequate, but like you, I don't really know where to start. [cid:[email protected]][cid:[email protected]] From: Jay Dale [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, June 24, 2010 11:23 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: DR Plan Hey all, I've been assigned to create a DR plan for our company, but I've never actually had to come up with one before. Does anyone have any ideas, templates, examples, or sites that can help me with this? Basically it needs to cover our current infrastructure, if we purchase a SAN in the future, and if we change our existing backup strategy from a local backup to an offsite replication backup. Thanks! Jay Dale I.T. Manager, 3GiG Mobile: 713.299.2541 Email: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail, including any attached files, may contain confidential and/or privileged information for the sole use of the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any review, dissemination or copying of this e-mail and attachments, if any, or the information contained herein, is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient (or authorized to receive information for the intended recipient), please contact the sender by reply e-mail and delete all copies of this message. ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
<<inline: image001.jpg>>
<<inline: image002.jpg>>
