Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning
Define business continuity/disaster recovery plan: Th e adequate preparations and procedures for the continuation of all business functions.
Business continuity planning (BCP) and Disaster recovery planning (DRP) address the preparation, processes, and practices required to ensure the preservation of the business in the face of major disruptions to normal business operations.
Regardless of industry, which element of legal and regulatory requirements are all industries subject to: Prudent man rule (exercise the same care in managing company affairs as in managing one’s own affairs)
The extent to which an organization should address business continuity or disaster recovery planning ------
Continuity planning is a significant corporate issue and should include all parts or functions of the company
Business continuity planning and Disaster recovery planning involve the identification, selection, implementation, testing, and updating of prudent processes and specific actions necessary to protect critical business processes from the effects of major system and network disruptions and to ensure the timely restoration of business operations if significant disruptions occur.
Business impact analysis is performed to identify: Th e exposures to loss to the organization
Th e business impact analysis is what is going to help the company decide what needs to be recovered and how quickly it needs to be recovered.
During the risk analysis planning phase, actions that could manage threats or mitigate the effects of an event ---- Implementing procedural controls
The third element of risk is mitigating factors. Mitigating factors are the controls or safeguards the planner will put in place to reduce the impact of a threat.
The reason to implement additional controls or safeguards is to ....... reduce the impact of the threat
Preventing a disaster is always better than trying to recover from one. If the planner can recommend controls to be put in place to prevent the most likely of risks from having an impact on the organization’s ability to do business, then the planner will have fewer actual events to recover from.
Business impact analysis: A business impact analysis establishes the effect of disruptions on the organization.
All business functions and the technology that supports them need to be classified based on their recovery priority. Recovery time frames for business operations are driven by the consequences of not performing the function. The consequences may be the result of business lost during the down period; contractual commitments not met resulting in fines or lawsuits, lost goodwill with customers.
Term disaster recovery commonly refers to--- The recovery of the technology environment. Once computers became part of the business landscape, it quickly became clear that we could not return to our manual processes if our computers failed. If those computer systems failed, there were not enough people to do the work nor did the people in the business still have the skill to do it manually anymore. Th is was the start of the disaster recovery industry. Still today, the term “disaster recovery” or “DR” commonly means recovery of the technology environment.
The effort to determine the consequences of disruptions that could result from a disaster
BIA
BIA helps the company decide what needs to be recovered and how quickly it needs to be recovered
Elements of risk------ Threats, assets and mitigating controls
Most efficient restore from tape backup-----Full backup
If a company wants the backup and recovery strategy to be as simple as possible, then they should only use full backups. Th ey take more time and hard drive space to perform but they are the most efficient in recovery.
Advantages of a hot site recovery solution is ---Highly available
Among the advantages of internal or external hot site are allows recovery to be tested, highly available, and site can be operational within hours.
Primary desired result of any well-planned business continuity exercise ---- Identifies plan strengths and weaknesses
Business continuity plan should be updated and maintained:
a. Immediately following an exercise.
b. Following a major change in personnel.
c. After installing new software.
DRP:
1. develop continuity planning policy statement.
2. BIA
3. identify preventive controls
4. develop recovery strategy
5. develop contingency plan
6. test the plan, take training,
7. maintain the paln
BIA Identifications:
1. What areas would suffer greatest operational and financial loss in the event of an disaster.
2. which systems are critical for the company and must be highly protected.
3. what amount of outage time a company can endure before it is permanently crippled.
Disaster recovery.......action ....just after disaster
Business continuity ...action....to keep operations running for a long period of time.
Steps in DR and CP:
1. project initiation
2. strategy dev
3. BIA
4. plan dev
5. imp
6. test
7. maintenance
Business case:
Walk-through:
collectively
Continuity planning policy statement:
Scope of BCP project, team members roles, goals of the project.
Acting out a specific scenario: simulation test.
BIA:
1. identify threat
2. identifying critical functions of the company
3. calculating RISK
To create a document to be used to help understand what impact a disruptive event would have on the business: Business Impact Assessment (BIA)
To define a strategy to minimize the effect of disturbances and to allow for the resumption of business processes: business continuity planning
The information needed to define the continuity strategy:
a. A strategy needs to be defined to preserve computing elements, such as hardware, software, and networking elements.
b. The strategy needs to address facility use during a disruptive event.
c. The strategy needs to define personnel roles in implementing continuity.
Element of BCP plan approval and implementation:
Creating an awareness of the plan
Obtaining senior management approval of the results
Updating the plan regularly and as needed
Most accurate about the results of the disaster recovery plan test:
If no deficiencies were found during the test, then the test was probably flawed.
Company/employee relations during and after a disaster.
The organization has a responsibility to continue salaries or other funding to the employees and/or families affected by the disaster.
Disbursement of funds during and after a disruptive event.
Authorized, signed checks should be stored securely off-site for access by lower-level managers in the event senior-level or financial management is unable to disburse funds normally.
post-disaster salvage team
a. The salvage team manages the cleaning of equipment after smoke damage.
b. The salvage team identifies sources of expertise to employ in the recovery of equipment or supplies.
c. The salvage team may be given the authority to declare when operations can resume at the disaster site.
role of the recovery team during the disaster
The recovery teams primary task is to get predefined critical business functions operating at the alternate processing site.
The recovery team will need full access to all backup media.
Continuity of operation plan:
establishes senior management and a headquarter after a disaster. It outlines roles and authorities, orders of succession and individual role task.
Information system contingency plan provides key information needed for system recovery:
roles and responsibilities
inventory
assessment procedures
recovery procedure
Testing a system
RA....assess Risk in All areas
BIA...assesses potential loss from a disaster.
Crisis communication plan ;
1. provides procedures for disseminating internal and external communications, means to provide critical status information and control rumor.
2. address communication with personnel and public; not system specific.
3. Incident based plan activated with a coop or bcp but may be used alone during a public exposure event.
Restoration of Organization's mission essential function focuses on :
Continuity of operation plan
Contingency plan includes:
system recovery
roles and respon
testing procedure
Difference between ISCP and DRP
ISCP can be developed for info recovery regardless of site or lacation.
DRP can be developed for info recovery from current site or temporary alternate site.
Longer distruption....more cost
shorter RTO...more expensive solution
calculating cost-balance-point will show an optimal point between disruption and recovery costs.
Data backup policy specification:
1. min. frequency
2. location of data stored
3. file name conventions
4. media rotation frequency
MOU---memorandum of understanding
System Environment:
low-impact..................tabletop
moderate-impact...........functional
high-impact........full functional
Business continuity Functional Analysis:
collect data
document function
develop hierarchy
apply data classification
Electronic vaulting characteristic:
1. transfers change in bulk (batch process)
2. backup in no real time(asyn)
3. no parallel processing to alternate site
Remote Journaling characteristics:
1. journal or transaction log is moved to remote
2. in real time(syn)
3. parallel processing to alternate site.
Define business continuity/disaster recovery plan: Th e adequate preparations and procedures for the continuation of all business functions.
Business continuity planning (BCP) and Disaster recovery planning (DRP) address the preparation, processes, and practices required to ensure the preservation of the business in the face of major disruptions to normal business operations.
Regardless of industry, which element of legal and regulatory requirements are all industries subject to: Prudent man rule (exercise the same care in managing company affairs as in managing one’s own affairs)
The extent to which an organization should address business continuity or disaster recovery planning ------
Continuity planning is a significant corporate issue and should include all parts or functions of the company
Business continuity planning and Disaster recovery planning involve the identification, selection, implementation, testing, and updating of prudent processes and specific actions necessary to protect critical business processes from the effects of major system and network disruptions and to ensure the timely restoration of business operations if significant disruptions occur.
Business impact analysis is performed to identify: Th e exposures to loss to the organization
Th e business impact analysis is what is going to help the company decide what needs to be recovered and how quickly it needs to be recovered.
During the risk analysis planning phase, actions that could manage threats or mitigate the effects of an event ---- Implementing procedural controls
The third element of risk is mitigating factors. Mitigating factors are the controls or safeguards the planner will put in place to reduce the impact of a threat.
The reason to implement additional controls or safeguards is to ....... reduce the impact of the threat
Preventing a disaster is always better than trying to recover from one. If the planner can recommend controls to be put in place to prevent the most likely of risks from having an impact on the organization’s ability to do business, then the planner will have fewer actual events to recover from.
Business impact analysis: A business impact analysis establishes the effect of disruptions on the organization.
All business functions and the technology that supports them need to be classified based on their recovery priority. Recovery time frames for business operations are driven by the consequences of not performing the function. The consequences may be the result of business lost during the down period; contractual commitments not met resulting in fines or lawsuits, lost goodwill with customers.
Term disaster recovery commonly refers to--- The recovery of the technology environment. Once computers became part of the business landscape, it quickly became clear that we could not return to our manual processes if our computers failed. If those computer systems failed, there were not enough people to do the work nor did the people in the business still have the skill to do it manually anymore. Th is was the start of the disaster recovery industry. Still today, the term “disaster recovery” or “DR” commonly means recovery of the technology environment.
The effort to determine the consequences of disruptions that could result from a disaster
BIA
BIA helps the company decide what needs to be recovered and how quickly it needs to be recovered
Elements of risk------ Threats, assets and mitigating controls
Most efficient restore from tape backup-----Full backup
If a company wants the backup and recovery strategy to be as simple as possible, then they should only use full backups. Th ey take more time and hard drive space to perform but they are the most efficient in recovery.
Advantages of a hot site recovery solution is ---Highly available
Among the advantages of internal or external hot site are allows recovery to be tested, highly available, and site can be operational within hours.
Primary desired result of any well-planned business continuity exercise ---- Identifies plan strengths and weaknesses
Business continuity plan should be updated and maintained:
a. Immediately following an exercise.
b. Following a major change in personnel.
c. After installing new software.
DRP:
1. develop continuity planning policy statement.
2. BIA
3. identify preventive controls
4. develop recovery strategy
5. develop contingency plan
6. test the plan, take training,
7. maintain the paln
BIA Identifications:
1. What areas would suffer greatest operational and financial loss in the event of an disaster.
2. which systems are critical for the company and must be highly protected.
3. what amount of outage time a company can endure before it is permanently crippled.
Disaster recovery.......action ....just after disaster
Business continuity ...action....to keep operations running for a long period of time.
Steps in DR and CP:
1. project initiation
2. strategy dev
3. BIA
4. plan dev
5. imp
6. test
7. maintenance
Business case:
Walk-through:
collectively
Continuity planning policy statement:
Scope of BCP project, team members roles, goals of the project.
Acting out a specific scenario: simulation test.
BIA:
1. identify threat
2. identifying critical functions of the company
3. calculating RISK
To create a document to be used to help understand what impact a disruptive event would have on the business: Business Impact Assessment (BIA)
To define a strategy to minimize the effect of disturbances and to allow for the resumption of business processes: business continuity planning
The information needed to define the continuity strategy:
a. A strategy needs to be defined to preserve computing elements, such as hardware, software, and networking elements.
b. The strategy needs to address facility use during a disruptive event.
c. The strategy needs to define personnel roles in implementing continuity.
Element of BCP plan approval and implementation:
Creating an awareness of the plan
Obtaining senior management approval of the results
Updating the plan regularly and as needed
Most accurate about the results of the disaster recovery plan test:
If no deficiencies were found during the test, then the test was probably flawed.
Company/employee relations during and after a disaster.
The organization has a responsibility to continue salaries or other funding to the employees and/or families affected by the disaster.
Disbursement of funds during and after a disruptive event.
Authorized, signed checks should be stored securely off-site for access by lower-level managers in the event senior-level or financial management is unable to disburse funds normally.
post-disaster salvage team
a. The salvage team manages the cleaning of equipment after smoke damage.
b. The salvage team identifies sources of expertise to employ in the recovery of equipment or supplies.
c. The salvage team may be given the authority to declare when operations can resume at the disaster site.
role of the recovery team during the disaster
The recovery teams primary task is to get predefined critical business functions operating at the alternate processing site.
The recovery team will need full access to all backup media.
Continuity of operation plan:
establishes senior management and a headquarter after a disaster. It outlines roles and authorities, orders of succession and individual role task.
Information system contingency plan provides key information needed for system recovery:
roles and responsibilities
inventory
assessment procedures
recovery procedure
Testing a system
RA....assess Risk in All areas
BIA...assesses potential loss from a disaster.
Crisis communication plan ;
1. provides procedures for disseminating internal and external communications, means to provide critical status information and control rumor.
2. address communication with personnel and public; not system specific.
3. Incident based plan activated with a coop or bcp but may be used alone during a public exposure event.
Restoration of Organization's mission essential function focuses on :
Continuity of operation plan
Contingency plan includes:
system recovery
roles and respon
testing procedure
Difference between ISCP and DRP
ISCP can be developed for info recovery regardless of site or lacation.
DRP can be developed for info recovery from current site or temporary alternate site.
Longer distruption....more cost
shorter RTO...more expensive solution
calculating cost-balance-point will show an optimal point between disruption and recovery costs.
Data backup policy specification:
1. min. frequency
2. location of data stored
3. file name conventions
4. media rotation frequency
MOU---memorandum of understanding
System Environment:
low-impact..................tabletop
moderate-impact...........functional
high-impact........full functional
Business continuity Functional Analysis:
collect data
document function
develop hierarchy
apply data classification
Electronic vaulting characteristic:
1. transfers change in bulk (batch process)
2. backup in no real time(asyn)
3. no parallel processing to alternate site
Remote Journaling characteristics:
1. journal or transaction log is moved to remote
2. in real time(syn)
3. parallel processing to alternate site.
Very nice blog... This blog post clearly shows the importance of business continuity and disaster recovery planning. Thanks for sharing
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