Wallace Michael - The Disaster Recovery Handbook

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| THIRD EDITION |

THIRD EDITION

A Step-by-Step Plan to Ensure Business Continuity and Protect Vital Operations, Facilities, and Assets

MICHAEL WALLACE
LAWRENCE WEBBER

by Dennis N.T. Perkins with Margaret P. Holtman and Jillian B. Murphy

PDF files for the supplementary materials are available to purchasers of this book at: www.amacombooks.org/go/DisasterRecovery3E.

www.amacombooks.org/go/DisasterRecovery3E

Form 1-1: Example Letter Appointing the Business Continuity Manager

Form 1-2: Stakeholder Assessment Map

Form 1-3: Team Member Responsibilities Map

Form 1-4: Communications Responsibility Plan

Form 1-5: Sample Stakeholder Reporting Matrix

Form 2-1: Department Function Identification

Form 2-2: Business Impact Analysis Questionnaire

Form 3-1: Layer One Risk Assessment Tool

Form 3-2: Layer Two Risk Assessment Tool

Form 3-3: Critical Process Impact Matrix

Form 3-4: Critical Process Breakdown Matrix

Form 3-5: Risk Assessment Form Layer 3

Form 3-6: Risk Assessment Form Layer 4

Form 3-7: Risk Assessment Form Layer 5

Form 5-1: List of Service Agreements

Form 5-2: Vendor List

Form 5-3: Emergency Contact List

Form 5-4: Vendor Matrix

Form 5-5: Emergency Equipment List

Form 6-1: Sample Business Continuity Action Plan

Form 3-3: Critical Process Impact Matrix

Form 3-4: Critical Process Breakdown Matrix

Form 7-1: Sample Administrative Plan

Form 7-2: Business Continuity Manager Job Description

Form 8-1: Technical Recovery Plan

Form 8-2: IT Team Leader Recovery Plan

Form 8-3: Technician Tracking Log

Form 8-4: Recovery Activity Log

Form 8-5: Hour-by-Hour Recovery Plan

Form 9-1: Sample Work Area Recovery Plan

Form 10-1: Sample Pandemic Management Plan

Form 11-1: Sample Crisis Management Plan

Form 11-2: Skill Matrix by Technical Skill

Form 11-3: Skill Matrix by Job Process

Form 11-4: Skill Matrix by Job Function

Form 13-1: Log Sheet

Form 13-2: Observation Log

Form 18-1: Shelf List

Form 18-2: Recommended Supplies List

Form 19-1: Sample Incident Management Plan

Form 20-1: Recovery Plan Distribution List

Form 20-2: Recovery Plan Change Record

Form 22-1: Inventory of Key Customers

Form 23-1: Supplier Data

Form 24-1: Sample Fire Poster

Form 25-1: Skill Matrix by Job Process

Form 25-2: Skill Matrix by Technical Skill

Form 25-3: Skill Matrix by Job Function

The authors would like to express their appreciation to Matt Curtin of Interhack, Michael James of Fireproof Records Center, and Alice Kaltenmark of Reed Elsevier for sharing their experiences in business continuity. Their wisdom and insights were extremely valuable in creating this updated edition.

We would also like to express our appreciation to our wives Tami and Nancy for their support while developing this and other books. Any successes that weve had would not have been possible without their support.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesnt have to do it himself.

A. H. WEILER

The job of a business executive requires coordination of the many activities necessary to create a successful business. Markets must be analyzed, potential customers identified, strategies for creating and delivering products and services must be developed, financial goals established and reported, legislative mandates followed, and many different stakeholders satisfied. To ensure that these objectives are met, businesses eventually develop a series of processes designed to produce the desired result. But the world is a dangerous place. Earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, pandemics, snowstorms, fire, and other natural disasters can strike at any time and interrupt these important processes. Terrorism, riots, arson, sabotage, and other human-created disasters can also damage your business. Accidents and equipment failures are guaranteed to happen. As an executive responsible for the well-being of your organization, it is critical that you have a plan in place to ensure that your business can continue its operations after such a disaster and to protect vital operations, facilities, and assets.

You do this just like you do any other important task; you analyze the situation and create a plan. A disaster recovery plan keeps you in business after a disaster by helping to minimize the damage and allowing your organization to recover as quickly as possible. While you cant prevent every disaster, you can with proper planning mitigate the damage and get back to work quickly and efficiently. The key is having a well-thought-out and up-to-date disaster recovery plan. This chapter will lead you through the creation and implementation of a project plan for creating an effective disaster recovery plan.

Disaster recovery is to recover from a significant disaster, such as a roof collapse in the computer room or a fire in a significant portion of the offices. A disaster almost always requires rebuilding a portion of the business in a recovery area in a very short time. Business continuity, also known as business resilience, involves identifying and mitigating critical machines that may fail. For example, a failure of the database server may close down online customer orders, so a second server is clustered and the disk storage is mirrored to provide redundancy.

Building a disaster recovery or business continuity plan is much like any other business project. A formal project management process is necessary to coordinate the various players and company disciplines required to successfully deliver the desired results of the project. This chapter will give you a high-level roadmap of what you should expect as you prepare to lead or manage a disaster recovery project. A sample project plan is included in the companion url accompanying this book. Adapt this chapter and the project plan to fit your business goals, company timeline, and scope of project.