Disaster Recovery Solutions

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is IT disaster recovery?

  Disaster recovery is the process of restoring critical systems, data, and operations after a disruptive event. The purpose of disaster recovery is to minimise downtime and ensure business continuity. While managing your IT and boosting your cyber security are done to prevent some disruptions, a disaster recovery plan needs to be in place because there is no 100% disaster-proof system.

• Why is disaster recovery important for a business?

  Disaster recovery solutions are crucial for any business because it helps to mitigate the impact of disruptive events (e.g., natural disasters, cyber-attacks, or system failures) and ensure the continuity of critical operations. Disaster recovery can also protect valuable data and assets, keep customer trust, and avoid significant financial losses.

• What is an IT Disaster Recovery Plan?

  A Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) is an organisation's roadmap that outlines the steps and procedures to recover critical systems, data, and operations in the aftermath of a disruptive event. It can enable a business to swiftly recover and resume normal operations. You can learn more downtime reduction strategies in our blog “How to Minimise Downtime and Ensure Business Continuity in a Professional Services Business”.

• What are the key components of a disaster recovery plan?

  A DRP typically requires:

  • A business impact analysis with various disaster scenarios
  • A comprehensive risk assessment and analysis to identify potential threats and their potential impact on the business
  • Identification and prioritisation of critical assets and resources (based on the business impact analysis) - which are mission-critical, important, and non-essential
  • Recovery goals: recovery time objective (RTO), recovery point objectives (RPO), and recovery consistency objective (RCO)
  • Regulatory compliance issues
  • A clearly defined recovery strategy specifying roles and responsibilities
  • Backup and restoration technologies and procedures
  • Testing and maintenance protocols
  • A communication plan for timely and effective coordination during the recovery process

• What is the difference between disaster recovery and business continuity? How are they related?

  Disaster recovery focuses on the technical and operational aspects of recovering critical IT infrastructure and systems following a disaster. Business continuity has a broader organisational perspective, ensuring the continuity of essential business functions and minimising overall impact. Disaster recovery is therefore a subset of business continuity.

• How do you know that a disaster recovery plan will work?

  A disaster recovery plan can be considered effective through regular testing and simulation exercises. Testing can validate a DRP's functionality, expose any gaps or weaknesses, and ensure that critical systems and data can be successfully restored within a defined RTO. A business must incorporate lessons learned into plan improvements.

  At ADITS, we thoroughly scope your needs and work closely with our disaster recovery and business continuity providers to ensure an adequate amount of redundancy and controls are put in place for your business. Talk to us today and let's discuss how a disaster recovery plan can help your business.

• How can cloud technology enhance disaster recovery capabilities?

  Cloud technology can enhance IT disaster recovery capabilities by providing a scalable, redundant, and secure environment for storing data. Cloud-based disaster recovery solutions can also automate many of the tasks involved in disaster recovery, such as data backup and replication.

  At ADITS, we partner with a tier 1 backup provider to ensure our clients have backups offsite and can restore into the cloud if such an event transpires.