On-Prem DRP

1. Developing and Documenting a DR Plan

 This activity involves as many of the business and IT staff as possible in order to get accurate input, identify the critical IT applications and software that must be recovered at all costs within agreed RTO (Recovery Time Objectives) and RPO (Recovery Point Objectives). These objectives may vary from application to application and from industry to industry. SMS can provide advice on both RTO and RPO by conducting a Business Impact Analysis (BIA), which is optional based on client requirement and agreement.

This is followed by a detailed and comprehensive description of all of the tasks that need to be executed in the event of an actual disaster, from disaster declaration to moving all critical applications to the Recovery Site and eventually back to the production site once the original site has been fully restored or a brand new data centre has been established from scratch.

2. Business Continuity Plan Option

SMS clients can opt to have a full Business Continuity Plan developed, which will include the DRP mentioned above but will additionally contain a plan on how the business will survive and operate during the time that its IT resources are not available. This will require input from all staff engaged in the critical business applications that were identified by the client or during the BIA.

3. Physical Security Assessment (PSA)Option

Another option available to SMS clients is to conduct a Physical Security Assessment on either their existing production Data Centre or their Recovery Centre or both. The objective of a PSA is to identify and define current and potential vulnerabilities and will cover access controls, environmental facilities (power supply and air-conditioning, fire detection, control & suppression systems, etc.) as well as any other factors that may pose a risk to the client’s security and operational practices, such as backups of critical data and recoverability. The assessment concludes with a management review containing recommendations for improvements in daily practices as well as risk mitigation items in order to minimize the possibility of a major disaster occurring.