We’ve all heard things like ” We need a disaster recovery plan”, “Be sure your data is backed up”, “We need off-site backup”, etc.
I’m sure most know of or have experienced firsthand situations where a company experienced a disaster and had to go through a recovery. I’ve seen many because of having jobs in companies where we supported hundreds of other companies using our technologies. I can tell you that it’s always a difficult and tough situation to go through.
The question is, “Are you prepared for a disaster?”
I can hear most of your answers already, , , “Sure we are. We have backups and a disaster recovery plan. We are good to go.”
Well the next question is, “Have you tested your disaster recovery plan?”
If you haven’t shut everything down and truly tested a recovery, then you don’t really know.
Two examples
- My last company had a disk failure 6 months before I got there. When they pulled in the backup tapes, they couldn’t read them. Net result was mission critical systems down for over two weeks. Wonder why senior management decided to find a new CIO?
- I had an IT Manager Institute student have to return to his company prematurely because of a system failure and their recovery procedures not working. He was able to return to the next class but I think you see my point.
Recommendations
- If you don’t have a disaster recovery plan, create one.
- If you haven’t tested it, be sure to conduct a recovery test to insure it will work.
ITLever™ 