Experts Agree You Should Update Your Plan Annually

It goes without saying that every company, regardless of size, needs a concise business continuity plan in case of an emergency. If you don't have a disaster recovery plan or haven't updated yours recently, now is the time to take this critical step to protect your business.

At the same time there are more security requirements that need to be met.  Executive management is depending on you to have the right security policies and procedures in place.

Chief Information Officers and Chief Security Officers need to have DRP and Security policies and procedures in place that address all of the issues of management and these templates meet this need.

Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Plan Creation

Testing – Step 4

Once your Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Plan (see Disaster Recovery Planning Template Business Continuity) is set, test it at least semi-annually. The enterprise will need to perform a component-level restoration of your largest databases to get a realistic assessment of your recovery procedure, but a periodic walk-through of the procedure with the recovery team will assure that everyone knows their roles. Test the systems you are going to use in recovery regularly to validate that all the pieces work. Always record your test results and update the Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Plan to address any shortcomings.

As your business environment changes, so should the Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Plan (DRP BCP). Reexamine the plan every year on a high level. Conduct a risk assessment annually and determine if you still need every part of the plan? Do you need to add to it? Will the budget need to be adjusted to accommodate changes to the plan? As applications, hardware, and software are added to your network, they must be brought into the plan. New employees must be trained on recovery procedures. New threats to business seem to pop up every week and a sound DRP BCP takes all of them into account.

Risk Assessment - Step 1