Short for
disaster recovery plan, a plan for business continuity in the event of a disaster that destroys part or all of a business's resources, including IT equipment,
data records and the physical space of an organization. The goal of a DRP is to resume normal computing capabilities in as little time as possible. A typical DRP has several stages:
- understanding an organization's activities and how all of its resources are interconnected
- assessing an organization's vulnerability in all areas, including operating procedures, physical space and equipment, data integrity and contingency planning
- understanding how all levels of the organization would be affected in the event of a disaster
- developing a short-term recovery plan
- developing a long-term recovery plan, including how to return to normal business operations and prioritizing the order of functions that are resumed
- testing and consistently maintaining and updating the plan as the business changes.
A key to a successful DRP is taking steps to preventing the likelihood of disasters from occurring, such as using a
hot site or
cold site to back up data
archives.
