Disaster Recovery: Planning, Strategies, Types & Procedures

A disaster recovery plan helps your organisation resume core computing and IT functions after some type of disaster. 

Many companies will face a challenge that puts their work at risk at some point. For example, organisations headquartered in Texas faced significant power outages at the beginning of 2021. At one point, power grid officials admitted that they had no idea when they could restore power.

In a situation like this, a disaster recovery plan could ensure that you don't lose data, customer confidence, or both. 

Planning for an incident like this is complicated, and you'll need plenty of people to help you with the work. 

Here's what you need to know to get started. 

What is disaster recovery?

In IT circles, a disaster is any kind of disruptive event that knocks your company offline or somehow puts your operations on pause. A disaster recovery plan should help you get back to normal as quickly as possible. 

The DR concept was developed in the 1970s as more companies relied on computers to get their work done. But the concepts you might use in a plan today are very different from those in the 1970s. And the types of disasters you face are slightly different too. 

Common disasters teams prepare for include:

• Cyberattacks. In 2020 alone, more than 1,000 data breaches took place. When hackers get into your systems, they can steal data, take you offline, or both. 
• Power outages. As the climate warms and superstorms become commonplace, your reliable source of electricity could disappear. 
• Equipment failures. Modern tools are delicate, sensitive, and apt to fail. Even routine maintenance can't prevent your equipment from going down. 
• Viruses. Companies without a disaster recovery plan had to scramble when COVID-19 hit and employees all stayed home to work. 

Your disaster recovery plan could also focus on incidents that haven't happened yet but seem likely in the coming years and months. As you craft your plan, you'll ensure that the challenges you face won't wipe your company off the map. 

How does disaster recovery work? 

Disaster recovery plans detail how you'll recover data when your primary servers go down or become unavailable. Typically, that means understanding how and where you'll save critical files. 

Consider this: A tree falls on your data centre. All of your servers go down at once. People inside the centre know that the organisation has taken a hit. But everyone outside of your building has no idea what's going on. 

A disaster recovery plan details how file restoration works. You've backed up data in a secondary location. Where is it stored? How quickly can you make it available?

Common strategies companies use for data restoration include:

• Clouds. Organisations partner with vendors, and they save data on the cloud automatically. Plenty of companies opt for this model, as it's considered easy and infinitely customisable. 
• Discs. A program saves copies of critical data, and you can rewrite older versions with newer sets. 
• Tapes. You record backups and send the tapes to an offsite location for storage. The model may seem old and low-tech, but close to 60 percent of companies still lean on backup tapes. 

People measure disaster recovery efficacy in tiers.

• 0: An organisation does not store any offsite data. Everything is available onsite. 
• 1: Backups are on physical media (like a tape), which the company keeps in an offsite facility. 
• 2: Backups are on physical media (like a tape), and the IT team transfers that to an offsite facility that they can also pull in to support key functions in a crisis. 
• 3: An organisation sets up a system to automatically transfer data to a live backup site (like a data centre or cloud). 
• 4: The company backs up data in multiple places, with multiple backups. 
• 5: The system continuously backs up in multiple places. 
• 6: The cloud or system provides continuous data and does not ever lose data. 

People often confuse disaster recovery plans with business continuity (BC) plans. They are similar, but a BC helps your team stay open and functional during a crisis. A BC plan may have a computer component, but it may also involve your structures, teams, financial partners, and more. 

What does a disaster recovery plan involve? 

When a crisis hits, your team doesn't have time to bicker about next steps and common challenges. They need a road map they can access quickly, so they can get started right away. Your completed disaster recovery plan does just that. 

Your completed disaster rec