What is DR?

DR stands for Disaster Recovery, the process of returning to normal operations following any event that causes significant disruption to your business.

What defines a ‘disaster’ and the associated DR response will likely be different from one business to the next, but whether recovering from a ransomware attack, a power outage or a natural disaster affecting facilities or communications, the road to getting your business operating as normal should be detailed in your Disaster Recovery Plan.

A Disaster Recovery Plan is a documented set of processes and procedures that should detail precisely how your business will recover from a given disaster scenario. It is critical that your DR plan is tested regularly to make sure it is still valid, but also simply to make sure it works- if disaster does strike you need to be confident you can get your business back up and running as quickly and smoothly as possible. You can’t afford to be in the situation where your business is unable to operate and you don’t know how, or worse- are unable to recover it.

You should also consider that DR isn’t just about recovering your IT, it’s about recovering your business. Although regaining access to data, email and telephony will feature heavily it should also cover logistical considerations such as alternative work locations and even the welfare of your staff. You may be confident you can recover your key sales database for example, but if your sales staff can’t work then your business isn’t working either.