Having a strong business continuity and IT disaster recovery program is one thing on paper but another in real life. Failure to actually test business continuity and disaster recovery plans is a fatal mistake for many organizations and the lesson learned is often too late. Uncovering that your disaster recovery and continuity plan is not sufficient during an actual emergency like a hurricane, infrastructure failure or even the coronavirus pandemic is not only terrifying but too little too late.
It is essential that businesses test the strength of their disaster recovery plan before a disaster or cyberattack occurs. Understanding the difference between business continuity and disaster recovery plans as well as how to and how often to test is key. Let’s explore each step below.
A business continuity plan (BCP) should ensure that your business can continue to operate should a disaster strike or cyber-attack occur. No matter what the size of your organization is, the goal should be that you can remain competitive in the marketplace.
The ideal outline of a BCP includes recovery solutions that will cover the processes, infrastructure, assets, business partners, and human resources of your business in the event of a disaster. The BCP for your organization should revolve around Business Impact Analysis, Risk Assessment, and an Incidence Response Plan. The information identified and gathered about your essential operations, vulnerability assessments, attack behaviours, and potential response and recovery will form your plan. In some circumstances, if your organization conducts business with the federal or provincial government, you may be expected to have an updated BCP and staff that is trained and certified in business continuity.
While a BCP and disaster recovery plan (DRP) has a number of similarities, they are not the same concepts. The scope is the key difference between the two, where a DRP is a protocol that ensures an organization can recover and restore all essential applications and sensitive data following a cyber-attack and a BCP makes sure that your business can continue operations throughout the incident period and not have more than a slight disruption and minimal downtime.
It is important to test your BCP and DRP to uncover any weaknesses. Disaster recovery testing allows you to identify potential errors and issues and develop solutions so that in a real disaster, your business will be able to reestablish critical operations. As the saying goes, ‘an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure’ and this cannot be overstated when it comes to disaster recovery testing.
Your disaster recovery plan should also be reviewed, assessed and restructured as needed annually. Anytime changes or modifications are made to your disaster recovery strategy, a BCP and DRP test should be run.
There is no one size fits all approach for testing the effectiveness of your DRP and BCP. However, there are some various recommended testing techniques that can strengthen your testing process. These include:
Develop a QRG (quick reference guide) that identifies the consecutive sequence where critical administrative and operational processes need to be followed.
Do a walk through that is a completely hands-on and a procedural drill. This ensures that the core delegation channels of key stakeholders and points of command are all completely aware of what their role and responsibilities are in case of an emergency or disaster. Your walkthrough should also test data validation, data replication, cloud backup, stand-by server switchovers, and all other technical components outlined in your BCP and DRP.
Perform a simulation test that focuses on the recovery and restoration of key components outlined in your plans. By replicating a genuine situation, this type of testing can help identify any potential failure points. A simulation test should include loss recover procedures, backup restraint and test the key safety, management, and leadership response teams.
Disaster recovery planning and testing needs to be performed by professionals with the correct knowledge and expertise. If your organization does not have the internal resources to plan, manage, and test your DRP and DCP, using a Managed Service Provider like MBC can help. Our team of IT experts is certified in leading disaster recovery methods and we can create, test, and execute a plan that makes sense for your business. To learn more about how we can help, get a free assessment today.
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