Spring 2009 issue of Horizons

Raise Your Expectations CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS AND BUSINESS CONSULTANTS

to recover in time to sustain operations. Some helpful resources are the Department of Homeland Security’s Web site on business continuity and disaster planning, http://www.ready.gov/business/plan/index.html, and the Disaster Recovery Journal, www.drj.com. BCP and DRP are ongoing business activities that grow and change with the company’s goals, strategy and size. The goal is to plan for continuation and resumption of key business processes after a disaster. Organizations that embrace BCP and DRP are better prepared for unplanned outages, disruptions or worst – disasters. In today’s business environment, recovery of many key business processes hinge on the availability of data and systems. Therefore, representatives from IT need to be involved as you determine your strategy and develop your plan. The following are critical steps management must consider when developing and implementing a disaster recovery plan: 1) Define the environment, including, but not limited to: a. Key processes and process owners

2) Perform an impact analysis – answer the hard questions. a. What must we have? b. What should we have? c. What can we live without and for how long? 3) Implement and periodically test the plan. 4) Monitor and update the plan throughout the year. Data Backup Methodology Regardless of how extensive, the DRP must account for the data and systems. Mission critical data and systems must be given additional attention. Management needs to know the data backup frequency and history and where and in what media the data is stored (i.e. tapes, DVD, hard drive). Without all the required data backed up, businesses that experience data loss or corruption must physically reconstruct all data from hard copy – assuming hard copies or other source documents are available. This process requires many hours to complete, usually at a high cost to the organization. Businesses that have backups of their critical data, as defined in the DRP, will be able to restore the data much faster and with less effort and cost to the organization. Some generally accepted

b. Key systems and data c. Key metrics for recovery d. Risk tolerance against budget

u spring 2009 issue 14