I’ve been listening to the debate about the Gulf Coast oil disaster and the US committee’s questioning of the oil companies very similar DR plans. And it reminded me of the debates I’ve had around DR planning.

The money, time and resources spent putting something together that you hope you’ll never use doesn’t seem to add up somehow.

But without doubt you’ve got to have a plan of some sort, just in case.

Disaster planning for the real world

It’s not practical to cover all the bases with a plan. Yes, you could build an identical business infrastructure on a separate island miles away and fly in an identical number of resources to run the infrastructure. But the cost of that would probably finish off the FD. And it would be totally impractical.

The other end of the scale sees a few contact numbers on the back of cigarette packet. Not good. Cheap though.

OK, to cover every scenario isn’t practical, so clearly, something in the middle is needed. Practical, cost effective and doable.

The obvious key elements in every good DR plan are an understanding the risks involved, the likelihood of an event happening and the business impact. Once these elements have been understood a plan can be put together.

Within the £2K budget you’ve been given of course.

I think a good DR strategy should really be a flexible framework that provides all the key resources needed to get your business up and running as quickly as possible, albeit with reduced capability.

Need to know

The plan needs to give people who know the business inside and out the ability to make and implement on the spot decisions. These may not be the people at the top of the tree. They’ll be focused on the longer term and how to get the main show back on the road.

Yes, you need a DR strategy but it has to be flexible enough to manage the unexpected, robust enough to work and be easily understood so that, within reason, anybody can pick it up to at least get the ball rolling. And, as boring as it is, it needs to be tested, regularly.

When the game becomes real

I’ve always wondered if people would react differently in a real live situation as opposed to the “war game” one. I think they would as the pressure and stress would be different, more intense. But by the same token people become more focused on the job in hand.

I’ve never had to invoke or be part of a full scale live DR plan in my years in IT. Been close a couple of times but never the full Monty.

On one occasion where it’s been close, we managed with a basic plan, contact numbers, a contingency site and a bit of infrastructure and then ran things from there.

We got some heavy duty job users up and running within an hour or so. Fortunately, the original cause was dealt with very quickly and we were back to normal within 24 hours. Happy days!

Finally – it’s funny how many critics suddenly develop 2020 hindsight in DR post mortems.

They must have all gone to Specsavers!

Written by David Stanley