Disaster Recovery Plan - Business Continuity Plan Template

ISO 27000 ( formerly ISO 17799 ) - Sarbanes-Oxley - HIPAA - PCI-DSS Compliant

Data center and information systems infrastructure are the backbone enabler's of most companies’ critical business processes. When organizations experience a major disaster or disruption, ensuring operational continuity for critical business processes requires that IT and electronic data be recovered in a timely manner.

The IT Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Template delivers a proven solution designed to protect and, if necessary, relocate critical information systems to alternate data center facilities. The Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Template does this by employing a comprehensive strategic and tactical planning approach that aligns recovery solutions with key business requirements and tolerances for disruption. The Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Template also delivers an actionable recovery plans that will direct your staff to respond to events beginning from the point of an initial data center disruption through alternate site relocation, operational recovery and return to your home facilities.

The Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Template has helped hundreds of organizations across a broad spectrum of industries in the creation of actionable Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity plan.

This Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) can be used as a Disaster Planning template for any enterprise. The Disaster Recovery template and supporting material have been updated to be Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA compliant. The Disaster Planning Template comes as a Word document and includes:

Disaster Recovery Plan and Business Continuity Template
Business and IT Impact Analysis Questionnaire
Work Plan
Disaster Planning Audit Program

New are:

Compliance with ISO 27000 ( ISO 27001 and ISO 27002), Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA standards
Web Site Disaster Recovery Planning Form
Department Disaster Recovery Activation Workbook
- Quick Reference Guide
- Team Alert List (Form)
- DRP Team Responsibilities
- DRP Team Checklist
- Critical Function(s) Definition
- Normal Business Hour Response Procedures
- After Hours Response Procedures
- DRP Location(s) Definition
- DRP Recovery Procedures
- Notification Procedures
- Notification Call List (Form)
Updated Business and IT Impact Analysis Questionnaire
Vendor Disaster Recovery Questionnaire
Vendor Phone List Form Updated
Key Customer Notification Form
Critical Resources to be Retrieved Form
Business Continuity Off-Site Materials Form

The premium edition contains 14 full job descriptions. They are:

Chief Information Officer
Chief Security Officer
Chief Compliance Officer
VP Strategy and Architecture
Director Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
Director e-Commerce
Manager Disaster Recovery
Manager Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
Disaster Recovery Coordinator
Disaster Recovery - Special Projects Supervisor
Manager Database
Capacity Planning Supervisor
Manager Media Library Support
Manager Site Management

The DRP template is over 200 pages and includes everything needed to customize the Disaster Recovery Plan to fit your specific requirement. The electronic document includes proven written text and examples for the following major sections of a disaster recovery plan:

Plan Introduction
Business Impact Analysis - including a sample impact matrix
DRP Organization Responsibilities pre and post disaster - drp checklist
Backup Strategy for Data Centers, Departmental File Servers, Wireless Network servers, Data at Outsourced Sites, Desktops (In office and "at home"), Laptops and PDA's.
Recovery Strategy including approach, escalation plan process and decision points
Disaster Recovery Procedures in a check list format
Plan Administration Process
Technical Appendix including definition of necessary phone numbers and contact points
Job Description for Disaster Recovery Manager (3 pages long) - entire disaster recovery team job descriptions are available.
Work Plan to modify and implement the template. Included is a list of deliverables for each task. (Risk Assessment and Vulnerability Assessment)

There is a extensive section that show how a full test of the DRP can be conducted. It includes

Disaster Recovery Manager Responsibilities
Distribution of the Disaster Recovery Plan
Maintenance of the Business Impact Analysis
Training of the Disaster Recovery Team
Testing of the Disaster Recovery Plan
Evaluation of the Disaster Recovery Plan Tests
Maintenance of the Disaster Recovery Plan

Click on the link below to get the DRP/BC sample pages now and make it a part of your disaster recovery toolkit.

Testimonial - Dave Baker - City of Hamilton - I have found the DRP template invaluable!

Testimonial - Bob Rifenbury -MCSE/CCNA Launch Testing Lab - The DRP Template saved me about 6 months of work!

Testimonial - Kelly Keeler - Martin's Point Health Care - I have received and I began using the template immediately. IT IS GREAT! Made this process a snap for me. Cut my documentation time down from. weeks to hours! This document has made, what began to be an overwhelming process turn into a snap!

Testimonial - Juan Stamos - Mexico City Corporation - We had a DRP in place, but needed a more user friendly structure. The Disaster Recovery Template (Gold edition) has that structure. It was very easy to quickly move our DRP into Janco's DRP Template -- a real added value.

* Update service is for 12 months unless it is purchased within 30 days of the purchase of the Template. Janco reserves the right to validate purchase of the customer was made for the template.

This template is not for resale or re-distribution - Disaster Recovery Planning Template Disaster Recovery Guide

Learn more about Data Destruction

Disaster Recovery Business Continuity News

ISO 17799 - disaster recovery - business continuity defined

SO 17799 is often used as a generic term to describe what are actually two different documents: ISO17799 (also ISO 27002), which is a set of security controls (a code of practice), and ISO 27001 (formerly BS7799-2), which is a standard 'specification' for an Information Security Management System (an ISMS).

ISO 17799 establishes guidelines and general principles for initiating, implementing, maintaining, and improving information security management in an organization. The objectives outlined provide general guidance on the commonly accepted goals of information security management. ISO/IEC 17799:2005 contains best practices of control objectives and controls in the following areas of information security management:

security policy;

organization of information security;

asset management;

human resources security;

physical and environmental security;

communications and operations management;

access control;

information systems acquisition, development and maintenance;

information security incident management;

business continuity management;

compliance.

The control objectives and controls in ISO/IEC 17799 are intended to be implemented to meet the requirements identified by a risk assessment. ISO/IEC 17799 is intended as a common basis and practical guideline for developing organizational security standards and effective security management practices, and to help build confidence in inter-organizational activities
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Disaster Planning is Complex

An increasing number of professionals know that small-scale emergencies can be contained if staff members are prepared to react quickly. Damage can be limited even in the face of a large-scale disaster. For example, cultural institutions in Charleston, South Carolina, formed a consortium that focused on disaster preparedness several years before they were hit by a hurricane. Many of those institutions sustained only minor damage because they were able to put their early warning procedures into operation.

Disaster planning is complex; the written plan is the result of a wide range of preliminary activities. The entire process is most efficient if it is formally assigned to one person who acts as the disaster planner for the institution and is perhaps assisted by a planning team or committee. The enterprise's director may play this primary role or may delegate the responsibility, but it is important to remember that the process must be supported at the highest level of the organization if it is to be effective. The planner should establish a timetable for the project and should define the scope and goals of the plan, which will depend largely on the risks faced by the enterprise.
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Disaster recovery business continuity team leader tasks

The tasks that the leader of a disaster recovery business continuity project needs to complete are:

Establish BC program lifecycle processes within your organization

Assess business and technology requirements for a BC plan

Evaluate business continuity risks to your organization

Identify and select cost-effective BC recovery strategies

Organize an effective BC team

Develop a BC plan document

Coordinate BC plan with external entities

Develop an effective test plan for testing the BC plan

Organize and conduct successful BC plan tests

Establish a process for maintaining the BC plan

Implement a BC plan change management process

Understand the main differences between a disaster recovery plan, emergency response plan, crisis management plan, and business continuity plan
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Business continuity after a terroist attack or a pandemic

Most aspects of business continuity and disaster recovery planning apply to terrorist attacks and pandemics just as much as to fires, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and other natural and manmade disasters. However, there are a number of areas that need to be re-visited because of the uniqueness of these types of interruptions.

Communication - While communication is important in any disaster recovery scenario, it is particularly critical in the event of a terrorist attack or a pandemic. Employees and their families may be personally threatened, and they may be exposed to rumors and panics, it is particularly important that they receive accurate, up-to-date information on safety and health issues. Employees also need detailed information on company policies and procedures for working in the new environment, and open communication channels to company officials to help resolve personal and work-related issues in high-stress situations.

Security and Connectivity - Enterprises must plan to provide secure and reliable access to corporate networks for employees who work in their homes, hotels, or other remote locations. Administrators must have a plan for distributing software to remote computers, ensuring security on computers outside of the corporate firewall, and providing backup and data encryption capabilities to mitigate the risk of mobile devices with sensitive data being lost or stolen.

Collaboration and Re-Engineered Processes - Planners and developers must re-engineer business processes so they can continue without face-to-face interaction between employees.

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Business continutiy defined

In the simplest of terms, it is good business for a company to secure its assets. CIO under the direction of CEOs and enterprise shareholders must be prepared to budget for and secure the necessary resources to support business continuity.

It is necessary that an appropriate administrative structure be created to effectively deal with crisis management. This will ensure that all concerned understand who makes decisions, how the decisions are implemented, and what the roles and responsibilities of participants are. Personnel used for crisis management should be assigned to perform these roles as part of their normal duties and not be expected to perform them on a voluntary basis. Regardless of the organization - for profit, not for profit, faith-based, non-governmental - its leadership has a duty to stakeholders to plan for its survival.

With the explosion of technology into every facet of the day-to-day business environment there is a need to define an effective infrastructure to support operating environment; have a strategy for the deployment and technology; and clearly define responsibilities and accountabilities for the use and application of technology.

The template comes as both a WORD document utilizing a CSS style sheet that is easily modifiable.
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Security Breaches Are a Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Concern

Servers are so compact that they could be removed from the building in a briefcase. When you consider the magnitude of the IT investment, and the value of the data and applications that ride on it, you can appreciate the critical importance of protecting it from unauthorized access. This is especially true after a disaster - anyone can walk off with you enterprise's key assets.

Server enclosures provide access control options such as lock-and-key, electronic control, RFID local readers and access cards.

Keys can be matched to individual cabinets, multiple cabinets of a certain type (such as containing networking equipment, telephone company equipment or servers), or any other combination desired.

Electronic control can provide multiple types of access, such as remote control, timed control, card reader control or a combination of all of these methods.

Diversified access-control strategies enable you to manage access at the level of function and/or individual, while a top-level disaster recovery administrator has a master key.
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Wi-Fi Proves Itself in a Disaster Area

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the only communication system that had not broken down was the wireless mesh network deployed in the downtown area to support surveillance cameras credited with reducing the citys prestorm violent-crime rate.
Today it still performs police duties, but as the lone public communications system left in the city, it also carries VoIP traffic that is the lifeline for many city businesses.
The storm wiped out wireline phone service and cellular networks, and those that it didn't destroy outright couldn't be kept up because the city could not get fuel to the backup generators needed to keep the networks running, Meffert told an audience at a session during Spring VON 2006 this week.
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Email Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Requirements

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity for email requires at least six factors to be included when the plan is created. They are:

Emergency backup for primary mail server
Ability to send and receive emails
View "some" email history
Retain history during the recovery period
Spam and virus filtering
After the fact synchronization with primary email server

Based on working with thousands of customers, Janco Associates has developed a Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Template that includes everything that you need to create a custom Disaster Plan.

You can download a full copy of the table of contents by going to http://www.e-janco.com/Register_drp.asp.

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Disaster plans are not keeping up with increased volumes

Data volumes are expanding rapidly and many Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity plans are not keeping up. It is estimated that over half of large US enterprises had 11 terabytes or more of unstructured data - business documents, virtual machine images, email, media files, etc. - in their environments, with annual growth rates hovering around 60%. This is compounded by a 20% or more annual growth rate for transactional data, historically the bulk of data processing. With remote office staffing levels in decline, IT's ability to track and secure these growing data sets is in jeopardy. - more info

Business Continuity Planning Key to Business Operations

Business Continuity planning is key requirement for running any modern enterprise that takes its operations and its clients seriously. With so many potential disasters looming that can befall an organization at any time, it seems unwise not to take actions to prepare for and try to prevent the devastating impact of such catastrophes.

There is a multiplicity of benefits in planning for Business Continuity and disaster planning within your organization. Not only will your data, hardware, software, etc., be better protected, but the people that compose your organization will be better safeguarded should a disaster occur. In addition, employees will be informed and rehearsed as to what actions to take to immediately start the recovery process and ensure business continuity if disaster strikes.

Without this type of preparation any unexpected event can severely disrupt the operation, continuity, and effectiveness of your business. Disabling events can come in all shapes and varieties. They can vary from the more common calamities like hard drive corruption, building fires or flooding to the rarer, yet more severe and often longer lasting disruptions that can occur on a city-wide or even national basis; events such as disruptions in transport (oil crises, metro shut-downs, transport worker, strikes, etc.), infrastructure weakening from terrorist attacks, or even severe loss of staff due to illness like a pandemic flu. All of these strikes a blow at an organization's struggle for business continuity.

For smaller companies the impact of even lesser disasters can hit much harder. For example, unexpected non-availability of key workers alone could be catastrophic, potentially causing as much disruption to business continuity as technological hardship, especially if it occurs during the height of the company's busy season. If only one person is trained to do particular and/or essential tasks, their unexpected absence can severely disrupt productivity.
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IT Infrastructure, Strategy, and Charter Template

Internet and IT Job Descriptions

Disaster Recovery Plan - Business Continuity Plan Template

ISO 27000 ( formerly ISO 17799 ) - Sarbanes-Oxley - HIPAA - PCI-DSS Compliant

Disaster Recovery Business Continuity News

ISO 17799 - disaster recovery - business continuity defined

Disaster Planning is Complex

Disaster recovery business continuity team leader tasks

Business continuity after a terroist attack or a pandemic

Business continutiy defined

Security Breaches Are a Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Concern

Wi-Fi Proves Itself in a Disaster Area

Email Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Requirements

Disaster plans are not keeping up with increased volumes

Business Continuity Planning Key to Business Operations