Disaster Recovery Planning
The one consistent need for all enterprises revolves around mitigating the effects of disasters. Consort offers several options for risk mitigation, from redundant network connections to failover hot-site capability. We construct disaster recovery (DR) plans with the twin objectives of minimal recovery time and cost effectiveness
Service Description
Consort's Disaster Recovery Specialist will work with your organization to develop disaster recovery scenarios and contingency plans for systems located in our datacenter premises as well as offsite distributed or remote systems.
Creating the Disaster Recovery Strategy
When it comes to recovering from a major man made or natural disaster planning is everything.
Consort's methodology includes conducting a business impact analysis to determine which systems and applications are most critical to the operation of your business. Additionally a determination is made regarding the point at which your organization will start to suffer business loss or encounter threats to employee safety and well being. From there we focus on selecting the appropriate option for your organization which may encompass leasing space at a Consort colocation facility to building out a complete redundant datacenter.
In light of recent events, disaster recovery planning has come to the forefront.
Anything from severe weather to failing infrastructure because of poorly distributed power grids to terrorism – cyber- or otherwise – can result in a loss of data. Aside from protecting applications, the DR Specialist will put a logistics plan in place so that all employees have a way to contact the company, learn where to go for emergency operations and know what will be expected of them. Additionally, the company's vendors and distributors will be notified and coordinated so that operations can proceed as normally as possible.An uncomfortable factor to consider is the risk of internal staff not being available to perform the recovery. In some disaster scenarios there are far greater issues than data recovery, but at some point this risk needs to be considered which is why it's best to plan for all types of contingencies for business continuity.
Comprehensive Testing
Consort provides your organization with training about disaster recovery planning. Training involves testing the plan and working out the kinks. We not only test for natural disaster, we include loss of facility power, and physical security breaches.
DR tests are scheduled and carried out from start to finish on a regular basis. The execution of a the DR plan begins by selecting a hypothetical scenario, declaring a disaster, implementing mock recovery activities and monitoring the progress. The quality of the the work performed, the timing and the problems encountered are critical components and they are documented for later review.Some typical mistakes uncovered during testing are the failure to account for resources, deviations from the test plan, failure to manage progress and improper documentation.
Once the test has concluded, a postmortem analysis and debriefings of the team is conducted where the DR Specialist presents what worked and what didn't and why.