Disaster Recovery Checklist

Stay One Step Ahead of Potential Disasters

Preparing your business for potential disaster means having a verifiable backup and disaster recovery plan (BDRP) in place. In addition to the ability to access company data and systems, the best Business Continuity Plans have written procedures that detail how employees will respond. Read through and download this disaster recovery checklist.

Before a Disaster Occurs, Ask Yourself:

• Do you have a disaster recovery solution in place?

• Do you trust it?

• When was the last time your backup was tested?

• How long does it take to recover from your current backup solution?

• How long can you realistically be down? One hour? One day?

• What is the financial cost of downtime to your business?

• When a disaster occurs, is there an off-site copy? 

Think through what you will do when a disaster occurs:

Assess the Problem and its Impact on Your Business

Every disaster is different. Before doing anything, understand the underlying issue and how it may affect you.

• Is the issue local to one machine, or does it affect your entire system?

• Have files been deleted or are servers/workstations down?

Establish Recovery Goals

Recovery is what makes a BDRP solution different from a simple backup strategy. Plan out your road to recovery.

• Restore the system, the data or both? Should time be spent recovering files and folders before system recovery?

• Identify critical systems and prioritize recovery tasks.

• From what date/time should you recover?

• How long can your recovery take?

Select the Appropriate Recovery Type(s)

To get to your “road to recovery,” the appropriate recovery procedure must be followed. Think about which approach will best get you to your end goal.

• File restore OR

• Local virtualization OR

• Off-site virtualization

Verify the Recovery and Confirm Functionality with Users

Once a recovery is verified, confirm that it interacts positively with users.

• Test network connectivity.

• Ensure all users can access resources and applications in the virtual environment.

Restore the Original System(s), if Needed

If the original system(s) needs to be restored, decide which restoration process will work best.

• Bare metal restore. OR

• Virtual machine restore.

Self-assess Afterward

After it’s all said and done, take a step back and think about it: How well did your team do? What could you have done differently?

• What precipitated the failure?

• What ongoing issues need to be addressed?

• What can be done better in future DR scenarios?

Most companies need help to strategically align technology with their business goals. Thriveon offers ongoing IT strategy and consulting with outsourced IT services. 

Download: Managed IT Services: What Good IT Support Looks Like