Disaster Recovery

What is Disaster Recovery?

Disaster Recovery (DR) and Business Continuity (BCP) planning work in tandem to map the people and processes required to support a business in the event of disaster through to the supporting information technology practices.

The term DR specifically relates to the technologies and processes within the information technology domain. BCP covers the broader enterprise wide requirements associated with keeping the overall business working in the event of a disaster (people, processes, places, physical equipment) - therefore DR planning must deliver to those requirements.

Our Approach - Disaster Recovery Approach (DRA)

RHE advocates progressing DR and BCP planning in tandem due to the inherent synergies between these two activities. We recommend a joint approach involving experts from across the organisation to bring together knowledge regarding the people, places, processes and physical equipment that combine to deliver services to the customer.

The goal is to develop a Business Continuity Plan identifying:

The services that are provided by the business when dealing with its customers and the required restoration time for those services.
The components that make up the services (people, processes, places equipment and technology) that would require management/restoration in the event of DR enactment.
The potential disasters and their impact on the provision of the services down to the individual component level.
Specification of the roles, responsibilities, timeline and actions required to restore or maintain the services for each of the disaster scenarios.

Based upon the prioritised services and recovery requirements identified in the BCP plan, the DR Plan will be developed that covers:

The applications and technology infrastructure that support the provision of each service and the restoration times for each of those components.
The specification of roles, responsibilities, timeslines and actions required to restore the applications and technology infrastructure in the event of a DR enactment.
The required roles, responsibilities and scheduled activities to maintain the applications and infrastructure in a "ready to enact DR" state so that restoration times can be delivered to.

Our observation is that an organisation's technology capabilities often cannot deliver to the requirements associated with the business continuity plans. As part of DR planning, RHE performs a gap analysis between BCP requirements and DR capabilities and the indicative costs of bridging the gap. This analysis is used to either reevaluate the BCP requirements or to develop a roadmap of technology changes required to deliver to the BCP requirements.

There are many technologies that deliver DR capabilities to the business and they are normally distributed on a continuum ranging from less automated, slower and cheaper through to more automated, faster and more costly. The chosen technology or technologies will be those that provide the closest fit to requirements at the right price point and with alignment to the organisation's technology roadmap and standards.

Key Benefits to the Customer

RHE understands both Business Continuity Planning and its relationship with Disaster Recovery planning - which is critical to ensuring alignment between IT and the business.
A technology neutral approach that aims to deliver DR requirements at the right price point yet maintaining alignment with the organisation's technology roadmap.
The ability to perform gap analysis between the recovery requirements and IT's ability to meet those requirements.
An integrated solution that incorporates backup/recovery, storage, server infrastructure, network design, virtualisation and environment management tools into a cohesive DR technology roadmap.
A business centric approach focused on protecting the core services to our customers' customers.