Digital solutions are being brought to previously underserved areas, such as the non-profit sector, thanks to technological innovation. But that does not delay the threats that come with innovations. Therefore, you and other companies must have a disaster recovery plan to make the most out of emerging IT technologies. But what exactly is this disaster recovery plan? A disaster recovery plan is more like an organizational strategy to recover all current, ongoing business processes and data lost in a disastrous event. However, a reliable disaster recovery plan cannot be built without figuring out its types and impact on your organization.

Creating a better disaster recovery plan requires a thorough understanding of different kinds of disaster events and security to face them easily. In a disaster, your team needs to be quick towards the condition as your decisive act significantly impacts the recovery rate. It is essential that you first understand the types of disasters that affect organizations adversely.

Types of Disasters:

Whenever people think of disaster recovery plans, they often think of technology-based disasters. You may find others as well, which we learned during this pandemic. You can categorize disasters into three types, which is right in technical terms as well:

1. Natural Disasters

2. Physical Disasters

3. Technology-Based Disasters

Disasters and their recovery plans that we will discuss across this blog, some of which might seem unrelated to your business type. In other words, while making a disaster recovery plan, you should think of what kinds of a disaster your business could face and their impact, and then plan accordingly.

Natural Disasters:

The types of disasters natural disasters could include the following events:

1. Fire

2. Losing physical data centers

3. Flooding in the working area

4. Storms

5. Pandemics or other similar events

The Possible Impacts of Natural Disasters on Organizations:

Caution: The impact of any natural disaster depends on the organization type and the extent of the incident.

On Physical Assets:

Speaking of the impact on physical assets by natural disasters, assets could be office servers, computer systems, and much significantly in your way of working with cloud or SaaS-based applications.

Communication Methods:

Flooding or rainy events could impact communication assets. Therefore, while choosing your phone systems, cell phones, or fire control, you should consider their potential to stay intact in such weather conditions.

Workflow:

Furthermore, you can always consider this ongoing COVID-19 pandemic the best example. It has drastically changed how every organization works, from office to home. So, while designing a DR plan for natural disasters, some questions would be asked to you by the DR solutions providers, including the technology you use, possible natural disasters, and their potential impacts on your organization by considering all necessary aspects.

Dealing with Natural Disasters:

Approaching New Working Styles:

While natural disasters are the core concerns, establishing innovative approaches for working and communication always sounds good. However, it is not easy for some organizations to change their work approaches one night. Therefore, they must opt for flexible technologies and assets, having easy and quick set-ups for every new change, and working efficiently even in a disaster.

Planning Flexible Communication Strategies:

Disasters happen for many reasons, but dealing with them silently is even more important than letting your customers suspect something wrong. Therefore, you must plan some code of communication and messages to act with clients and people outside of the organization at the time of disaster.

Physical Disasters:

The types of disasters, physical disasters could include the following events:

1. General infrastructure failure (power or water connection loss)

2. Physical damages to the organization facility (e.g., collapsed roof)

3. Material security breaches or facility break-ins

4. Damage to electronic assets (such as a heater or cooler malfunctioning)

The Possible Impacts of Physical Disasters on Organizations:

Moreover, it comprises all necessary damage done through natural disasters, and its impact also depends on the place and way you work.

1. Due to the impact of physical disasters on physical assets or facilities, you may need to ask employees to work from home for the required period to fix issues.

2. In case of extreme damage, you may need to relocate employees and technology infrastructure to another facility.

3. If not fixed on time, the heating or cooling issues may lead to technological disasters.

Dealing with Physical Disasters:

A Quick Back-Up Plan to Recreate Your Workflow:

While physical disasters are the concern points, it is essential to understand methods for recreating your work by keeping its action time in mind. The span of workflow adjustment plans depends on the types of physical disasters and their impact. For example, a power grid failure requires a shorter time to fix and, therefore, needs to recreate the workflow plan for short-term adjustments, but collapsed roofs may need long-term adjustments.

Find Third-Party Associates:

During disasters, you need to figure out the best and trustable third-party associate to whom you can talk about your physical damage. For example, for server failures, you may contact your dedicated third-party IT support or infrastructure management vendor to fix them at the right time. Also, before engaging with any third-party IT support vendor, you and the vendor must sign the shared responsibility agreements reflecting needs in a disaster time.

Technology-Based Disasters:

In the types of disasters, technology-based disasters could include the following events:

1. Ransomware and Malware attacks or other security breaches

2. Server hardware failure

3. Third-party infrastructure failure (SaaS/Cloud platform)

4. Network infrastructure failure

5. ISP outages or bottlenecks

Technology-based disasters are most often as they can be simulated intentionally or happen due to physical or natural disasters. Luckily, these disasters have many remedies and solutions to avoid predictable impacts.

The Possible Impacts of Technology-Based Disasters on Organizations:

Technology Support:

Sometimes systems may suffer from outages or bottlenecks, whether due to a sudden increase in website traffic or intentionally simulated traffic (to hide from being suspected). You know that in this digital world, every small effort is necessary.

Data Loss:

Most technology-based disasters first target any organization's data, whether it has happened intentionally or naturally. The most concerning point is that today data is the king and most expensive asset any organization or individual can have.

Dealing with Technology-Based Disasters:

Build an Efficient Response Plan along with Contingencies:

In the technology world, you must have an idea that even a small failure or issue is a potential launch to a disaster event. Therefore, you must have DR plans and such issues avoidance plans in place. To make these plans, you have to analyze your technology assets and find their issues and impacts to make a better DR plan. You can also approach third-party disaster recovery solution providers and use resources available on the web.

Organizational Communicational Plans:

Communication plays a vital role in the time of technology disaster for an organization. Stakeholders, like customers, lawyers, and many others, also play a key role. Therefore, you must be transparent about events, and approaches taken to resolve issues and determine steps & measures to avoid such in the future.

List Out Areas Your Disaster Recovery Plan Should Include:

There could be various entities to cover, but the following ones should be there in your DR plan:

1. Expected restoration time

2. System limitations due to technology failure

3. Compliance and regulation standards that your organization should opt for

Final Words:

Finally, we'd like to say that you should always look at disasters as a positive approach to reinventing something more innovative and secure. To develop the best disaster recovery plan, you should always check for other similar events, impacts, and steps taken to recover from them and avoid them in the future. Still, if you need help from experts, you're always welcome to contact us at sales@cloudstakes.com with all your questions. We ensure to get back to you with the best DR solution within 24-48 hours. Book a disaster recovery consultation slot today!