Disaster Recovery Procedure

Undoubtedly, it is very hard to define the disasters and hence the Disaster Recovery Procedure. Frankly speaking there is no short cut to the procedure. It needs time and great efforts to define and align Disaster Recovery Procedure. The feedback from the business units will begin to shape your Disaster Recovery Procedure. If, for example, they determine that the company must be up within 48 hours of an incident to stay viable, then you can calculate the amount of time it would take to execute the recovery plan and have the business back up in that timeframe. One domain expert suggests that you have the recovery systems tested, configured, and retested 24 hours prior to launching them. He says the set up takes anywhere from 40 hours to days to complete.

Well, the Disaster Recovery Procedure should be written in a detailed plan or "script." Establish a recovery team from among the IT staff and assign specific recovery duties to each member. The manner in which your team conducts its recovery probably will be no different than its regular production procedures: the chain of command likely won't change and neither will the aspects of the network for which each member is responsible.

In Disaster Recovery Procedure, define how to deal with the loss of various aspects of the network (databases, servers, bridges/routers, communications links, etc.) and specify who arranges for repairs or reconstruction and how the data recovery process occurs. The script will also outline priorities for the recovery: What needs to be recovered first? What is the communication procedure for the initial respondents? To complement the script, create a checklist or test procedure to verify that everything is back to normal once repairs and data recovery have taken place.

In every Disaster Recovery Procedure, once your Disaster Recovery Plan is set, test it frequently and appropriately. Eventually you'll need to perform a component-level restoration of your largest databases to get a realistic assessment of your Disaster 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're going to use in recovery regularly to validate that all the pieces work. Always record your test results and update the Disaster Recovery Procedure to address any shortcomings.

As your business environment changes, so should your Disaster Recovery Procedure. Reexamine the plan every year on a high level. Like, do 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 Disaster Recovery Procedure. New threats to business seem to pop up every week and a sound Disaster Recovery Procedure and plan take all of them into account. For example: Disaster Recovery Procedure refers to the process of getting a system going again after a "disaster", usually considered any system problem significant enough to warrant a full restore from backup. Disaster recovery under DOS is a relatively simple affair, but under Windows 95 it can be problematic. The main reason is that unless your backup software includes the single-step recovery feature, you have to reinstall and run Windows 95 to do the restore.

• Perform a Minimum Windows 95 Reinstall, to an Alternative Disk Volume: Reinstall Windows 95, but when you do, install it not to the C: drive where you would normally put it, but rather some other drive, say D:. Just do enough of an install to get the backup software running don't worry about fine-tuning or setting up all your peripherals and drivers; the installation is not going to be around for long. This install should proceed without any problems.
• Reinstall Your Backup Software: Reinstall your backup and recovery software onto D: as well.
• Restore C: Disk Volume: Run your restore software to restore the contents of only your C: drive. Since Windows 95 is running from the D: drive there should be no conflicts. Now your original system files and original Windows 95 copy should be restored.