Planning for the Worst

When catastrophe strikes, protecting IT infrastructure investment and minimizing business downtime are the two essential pillars of any IT disaster recovery (DR) plan. Protecting your company's ability to do business is paramount.

With products such as Veeam Backup for Office 365 and N-Able, PSI provides the tools and step-by-step processes to respond to unplanned hardware, software, network, process, people, and environmental threats that can disrupt your IT infrastructure.

Corporate IT Disaster Recovery Objectives

Using a combination of offsite and cloud-based data storage tools, PSI get the tools and procedures in place for returning disrupted systems, networks, and crashed hard drives to normal with minimal impact and disruption to company operations.

Process and Structure

The IT disaster recovery process identifies critical IT systems and networks; prioritizes their recovery time objective; and delineates the steps needed to restart, reconfigure, and recover them. A comprehensive IT DR plan also includes all the relevant supplier contacts, sources of expertise for recovering disrupted systems and a logical sequence of action steps to take for a smooth recovery.

PSI emulates the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication 800-34, Contingency Planning for Information Technology Systems approach which offers this summary for the ideal IT disaster recovery plan structure:

1. Develop the contingency planning policy statement. A formal policy provides the authority and guidance necessary to develop an effective contingency plan.
2. Conduct the business impact analysis (BIA). The business impact analysis helps to identify and prioritize critical IT systems and components.
3. Identify preventive controls. These are measures that reduce the effects of system disruptions and can increase system availability and reduce contingency life cycle costs.
4. Develop recovery strategies. Thorough recovery strategies ensure that the system can be recovered quickly and effectively following a disruption.
5. Develop an IT contingency plan. The contingency plan should contain detailed guidance and procedures for restoring a damaged system.
6. Plan testing, training and exercising. Testing the plan identifies planning gaps, whereas training prepares recovery personnel for plan activation; both activities improve plan effectiveness and overall agency preparedness.
7. Plan maintenance. The plan should be a living document that is updated regularly to remain current with system enhancements.

Call PSI Today

Call PSI today at 613-747-5018 to learn more about how our data protection and disaster recovery planning services can help your company achieve business excellence.