When a crisis disrupts your business continuity, the goal is to get back to functionality as soon as possible. But what exactly is required to establish functionality? It’s not likely everything can go back to normal right away, but we can set benchmarks for necessary minimum functionality.
When building a business resumption plan, it is important to define your Recovery Objectives — attainable goals that will allow your business to stay above water. Essentially, it’s all about sustainability.
Recovery Time Objective
First, you will need to determine a Recovery Time Objective. The key question to ask is, “How much time do we have to get running again?” Take into consideration how long your business can afford to be down before the situation becomes dire. That amount of time is how long you have to put your recovery plan into action.
Recovery Level Objectives
Actual recovery can be broken down into levels. Just as a person has different levels of alertness and productivity, so does a business. You can separate the recovery process into Emergency Level Service, Key Business Processes and Business as Usual. Defining each of these levels is establishing a Recovery Level Objective. What needs to happen in order for you business to attain each of those levels?
Assess Loss of Data
Another important component to consider is how much data you are willing to re-enter without backup. Some would say they could afford to lose a whole day’s worth of data while others can only afford to lose an hour, or even less. How much data can you easily recall from memory or notes? This will establish how often your system needs to be backed up.
Assessing loss and setting objectives are important because they give concrete goals to the recovery process. Working toward these objectives will help to get your business back up and running gradually, but efficiently — placing priority on the most critical components first.
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Bill McCharen, COO
Our goal for this blog is to answer the questions you ask. If you have any questions about disaster recovery or any other topic please email me at [email protected]. To learn more about IT subscribe to our blog.
