How to Make an IT Disaster Recovery Plan

如何制定IT灾难恢复计划

2020-11-26 03:20 project manager

本文共1539个字,阅读需16分钟

阅读模式 切换至中文

Data is more fragile than we think. It can be corrupted, hacked, stolen or accidentally deleted; it can be destroyed by power outages, water damage or earthquakes. There’s so much that might go wrong that, if you don’t have an IT disaster recovery plan in place, the damage could be irreparable. Action must be taken immediately. That means you have to have an IT contingency plan figured out long before anything disastrous happens. We sometimes can stop disasters from happening, but we can certainly plan for recovery. Just like any project plan, an IT disaster recovery plan is made up of pieces. What Is an IT Disaster Recovery Plan? An IT disaster recovery plan is exactly what it sounds like—a plan to respond when something dire happens to your IT system. It is made up of policies and procedures, and notes the tools necessary to enact the plan and save or recover the technology infrastructure, systems and data of your IT program. When formulating disaster recovery, it is assumed that that the main area where your IT is located is not salvageable, at least not immediately; therefore, the plan speaks to the process of restoring data and services to another IT site that is workable. The site of the original incident is not of primary concern. Organizations are encouraged to have a holistic pre-disaster plan as it saves money in the long run. It is believed that for every dollar spent beforehand you save four times as much if responding after the event. So consider planning tools and additional fail safe investments. Why Is an IT Contingency Plan Important? As we move deeper into a digital world, the need for IT systems has become more pronounced. Just over the last few decades, there’s been a huge migration from analog to digital. The advantages have been detailed, but the risks are not always self-evident as people uncritically embrace the new. We put a lot of faith into our technology, but the truth is that our tech is not infallible. They break and fail all the time. The more we place our well-being, and that of our businesses, on their backs without safeguards, the more we’re asking for trouble. There is almost a religious zeal when talking about technology and how it’s the cure to all our ails. If only we could remove the human component, machines would usher us into a new age. This magical thinking is dangerous. It romanticizes technology and denies the fact that machines and software are not perfect. They make mistakes, so we have to have a contingency plan. Business Consequences While we can control our corporate attitude towards the technology that helps us do our business, the minds of our customers are not as malleable. They expect products and services to be perfect. They don’t want to see how the sausage is made. Therefore, knowing technology can crash, companies need to have to have an IT disaster plan to keep delivery to your customer base uninterrupted. This again speaks to the bottom line. If a technological issue occurs, it’s likely to result in the loss of some customers. That might not seem too high a price to pay, but retaining customers is not so easy, and rebuilding trust is an uphill battle. Therefore, an IT contingency plan will protect you from having the damage bleed out to customers. Outside of your customers, losing your data impacts the productivity of your employees. The instability resulting from an IT disaster has ramifications beyond hardware and software. It leads to lost revenue and a damaged reputation on top of the loss of data. How to Make an IT Disaster Recovery Plan When creating the plan, take these things into consideration. Have emergency contacts for staff and external contacts, including developing a notification network to reach out effectively. Try and figure out what the scope of the recovery will be. Get a disaster recovery team and note each member’s responsibilities. This will include having a team leader and a management team responsible for the process. Enable the recovery and continuation of critical technology, infrastructure and systems. Focus on the information and/or technology systems of supporting critical business continuity. Keep all essential business aspects functioning despite significant disruptive events. It’s considered a subset of business continuity. IT Disaster Recovery Plan Outline To create an IT disaster recovery plan, whether it’s invoked following a natural disaster (such as a hurricane, tornado, fire, flood, etc.) or a man-made one (such as errors, breaches, sabotage, etc.), follow this outline. Inventory: Know your IT, from systems, hardware to software. List all your inventory and define which parts are vulnerable to what kinds of mishaps. Recovery Timeline: Note what is an acceptable amount of time to recover your listed inventory and get back into operation. Get Buy-In: First you have to get approval from stakeholders, then everyone in the organization must know the plan and how it will be enacted. Backup Data: To avoid disaster or at least the scope of damage when disaster hits, set up backups, such as external drives or to the cloud. Physical Damage: Backing up saves your data, but don’t forget about your hardware. Have a backup generator for power outages, for example. Human Error: People can intentionally or unintentionally cause damage to your IT system, so thoroughly work out who has access to what. Insurance: The best-laid plans…as they say. Insurance can be a life-saver. It’s an upfront cost from which there might never be a return, but it could save the business. Test: Once you have a plan, test it regularly to avoid surprises when a real disaster hits. Free Templates That Can Help with IT Contingency Planning Building an IT disaster recovery plan is a big endeavor. There’s a lot to take into account and track. To help you get a foothold, ProjectManager.com has dozens of free project management templates, including some that are designed for just this purpose. IT Risk Assessment Template Knowing what might happen will inform your plan when responding to IT damage. If you can identify risk to your IT, and then you can preemptively plan and assign a team member to lead the initiative. The free IT risk assessment template collects all the data you’ll need to note how the risk can impact your IT and how to potentially control it. Issue Tracking Template Trouble usually doesn’t come alone. As you’re working through recovering data and repairing damaged hardware, you’ll need a structure to track the identification and resolution of these issues. The free issue tracking template gives you a space to describe the issue and what it impact is. Then you can set the priority, date it and assign a team member to own the issue and manage its resolution. Lessons Learned Template Because an IT disaster recovery plan is a living document, you want to revisit it and revise it with some regularity. That is often after testing has uncovered some issues you hadn’t thought of or in the aftermath of a real disaster. Either way, our free lessons learned template is a great tool to gather up what you’ve discovered. Be sure to bring your whole team into the proceedings. The more perspectives, the more insights. How ProjectManager.com Can Help with an IT Disaster Recovery Plan Templates are great, but they are limited. They’re just documents, and lack the dynamism you need to plan your IT disaster recovery. ProjectManager.com is an award-winning project management tool that helps you to organize your plan and recovery. Robust Security Rather than respond to a problem, you’d prefer to avoid them. We have security features that restrict who can do what when they’re in the software. You can assign only who you want with administrative duties. Others can be onboarded, but only have defined privileges. Timelines & Schedules Building a plan requires organizing tasks over a timeline. It can get complicated. But we make scheduling your plan simple with an online Gantt chart lists every task in your plan and sets the duration for each, so they can then populate a project timeline. If you have tasks that can’t start or end until another starts or ends, just link the task dependencies to avoid bottlenecks later on. Live Tracking Monitoring your plan as it’s executed to make sure that your IT is recovered and your systems are back on as quickly as possible, is how you keep on track. Our real-time dashboard monitors your recovery plan automatically, and creates graphs and charts to keep you updated on task status, variance and much more. ProjectManager.com is a cloud-based tool that helps you build plans to recover IT and monitor the process in real-time. Our features help you control every phase in your IT contingency plan. See why over 10,000 teams use our software to stay ahead of problems by taking this free 30-day trial. How to Make a Disaster Recovery Plan Project Plan Template How to Make a Scope Management Plan Action Plan Template
数据没有我们想象得那么强大。它会出错,遭到黑客入侵,被人窃取或意外删除;由于断电、机器进水或地震等原因,数据还会被破坏。 如果您没有制定合适的IT灾难恢复计划,那么可能会出现许多错误,造成无法弥补的损害。因此必须立即采取措施。这意味着您必须在任何灾难性事件发生之前就制定好IT应急计划。 有时,我们可以阻止灾难的发生,当然也可以提前指定计划,以便恢复数据。就像任何项目计划一样,IT灾难恢复计划也是由各个单项组成的。 那么,什么是IT灾难恢复计划? IT灾难恢复计划,顾名思义,当您的IT系统处于危急情况时,该计划会做出响应。该计划由规则和程序组成,并规定了计划的制定以及保存或恢复您的IT项目、系统和数据的技术基础设施所必需的工具。 在制定灾难恢复机制时,假设情况为:您的IT所在主要区域不可修复,至少不可立即修复;因此,该计划应急过程为:将数据和服务恢复到另一个可用的IT站点。该计划关注的首要问题并非事件始发时的站点位置。 鼓励各组织制定一个全面的灾前计划。因为从长远来看,此举可以节省成本。人们认为,如果在事情发生之后采取应急反应,那么事发之前花的每一美元可以为你省下四倍的钱。因此,可以考虑规划工具和额外的故障保险投资。 为什么IT应急计划很重要? 随着对数字世界更深入的了解,人们对IT系统的需求变得更加明显。就在过去的几十年里,模拟化大规模转向数字化。其优点显而易见,但其中的风险时常让人摸不着头脑,因为人们总是乐于接受新事物。 虽然我们对自己的技术充满信心,但事实上,我们的技术并非万无一失。技术或崩溃,或失败,这是时常发生的事。我们越是把人类的福祉和企业的福祉寄托在这些技术上,却没有给予其任何保障,我们遇到的问题就越多。 谈及科技及其如何为我们解决难题时,我们会产生一种近乎宗教的狂热。如果排除人类因素,机器将会把我们带入一个新时代。这意味着人们将技术浪漫化,否认机器和软件是有缺陷的,因此这种奇想是危险的。机器和软件也会出错,所以我们必须制定应急计划。 业务后果 对业务有所助益的技术,我们可以改变对其产生的合作态度,但客户的想法却不会轻易受到影响。客户期待完美的产品和服务,他们不想看香肠的制作过程。因此,公司一旦预知技术可能会崩溃,就需要制定一个IT灾难计划,以保证可以不间断地向客户群提供服务。 这要再次提及基本原则。如果出现技术问题,很可能会失去部分客户。代价看似不是太高,但留住客户并非易事,重塑客户的信任则难上加难。因此,IT应急计划将保证您的客户不会受到影响。 除了客户,数据丢失也会影响员工的工作效率。由IT灾难导致的工作不稳定性,影响范围不止硬件和软件。数据丢失还会导致收入方面的损失和声誉受损。 如何制定IT灾难恢复计划 创建计划时,需考虑以下事项。 为内部工作人员和外部联系人建立紧急联系人机制,包括建立通知网络,以便有效进行联系。 尝试找到需恢复的数据范围。 组建一个灾难恢复小组,并指出每个成员的职责,包括一个团队领导者和一个负责整个过程的管理团队。 建立健全关键技术、基础设施和系统的恢复与续用机制。 关注支持关键业务连续性的信息和/或技术系统。 发生重大破坏性事件时,所有关键业务仍保持正常运作。 这是保证业务连续性的一个条件。 IT灾难恢复计划大纲 对于发生自然灾害(如飓风,龙卷风,火灾,洪水等)或人为灾难(如错误,违反规则,人为破坏等)时启用的IT灾难恢复计划,创建其时,要遵循本大纲。 库存:从系统、硬件到软件各个方面了解您的IT。列出所有项目的库存,并确定每项易发生的事故类型。 恢复时间线:注意恢复库存中项目和重新开始运行所需要的时间量。 获得许可:首先必须得到利益相关者的批准,然后组织中的每个人都必须知道该计划以及该计划将如何制定。 数据备份:为避免灾难或灾难来袭时将破坏范围降至最低,需设置数据备份,如备份至外部驱动器或云。 物理损坏:备份可以保存您的数据,但不要忘记保护硬件。例如,准备备用发电机以备停电时使用。 人为错误:人们可能会有意或无意地破坏IT系统,因此须确定系统中每一个项目的访问者。 保险:闻如其名,这是最佳的计划。保险是最后一根稻草。在保险上的花费需提前预支且可能不会得到回报,但保险可以挽救企业。 测试:一旦计划制定成功,需定期测试它,以避免在灾难发生时出现意外。 制定IT应急计划的免费模板 构建IT灾难恢复计划是一项艰巨的任务。有很多事情需要考虑和追踪。ProjectManager.com网站可提供数十个免费项目管理模板,其中一些模板可专门帮助您找到切入点。 IT风险评估模板 可能发生的事件会提示您的计划,此时其会响应IT损坏。如果能够识别出IT系统遇到的风险,那么您就可以先发制人,制定计划,并指派一名团队成员来领导该计划的实施。免费的IT风险评估模板收集所有您需要的数据,以说明风险对您的IT系统的影响以及风险可能会如何控制您的IT系统。 问题追踪模板 问题出现时通常会造成许多后果。当恢复数据和修复受损硬件时,您需要一个系统来追踪这些问题的识别和解决进程。免费的问题跟踪模板为您提供空间来描述问题及其影响。然后,您可以设置优先级,确定完成日期,并指定团队成员负责问题并管理其解决方案。 经验模板 由于IT灾难恢复计划是一个动态文件,所以您需要重复访问,并作定期修改。这通常是在测试发现了一些您未考虑到的问题之后,或者是在灾难发生之后。无论何种情况下,我们的免费经验教训模板是一个强大的工具,可以收集您所发现的问题。务必让整个团队都参加该计划。参与者越多,观点越丰富。 ProjectManager.com如何帮助您制定IT灾难恢复计划 模板虽强大,但能力是有限的。这些只是文档,缺乏制定IT灾难恢复计划所需的动力。ProjectManager.com是一个备受赞誉的项目管理工具,帮助您组织计划和恢复行动。 万无一失的安全性 人们宁愿回避问题,而不是回应问题。我们的计划具有安全性,可以限制软件使用者的行为。您可以指定相关人员承担管理职责。其他人可以登录,但只有限定访问权。 时间表和计划 构建计划需要在时间线上组织任务。会变得很复杂。但是我们可以通过联机甘特图列出计划中的每项任务并设置每项任务的工期,从而使计划的排定变得简单,这样它们就可以填充项目时间线。如果您的任务只有在另一个任务开始或结束后才能开始或结束,那么只需将任务依赖项链接起来,以避免以后出现瓶颈。 实时追踪 在执行计划时对计划进行监控,以确保您的IT得到恢复,系统尽快恢复正常,这是保持计划正常运行的方法。我们的实时仪表板自动监控您的恢复计划,并创建图形和图表,使您随时了解任务状态、变化和更多信息。 ProjectManager.com是一个基于云的工具,可以帮助您建立恢复计划,并实时监控整个过程。该工具帮助您控制IT应急计划中的每个阶段。这就是为什么超过一万个团队参与本软件的免费30天试用,即使遇到问题也依然能保持行业领先。 如何制定灾难恢复计划 项目计划模板 如何制定作用域内管理计划 实施计划模板

以上中文文本为机器翻译,存在不同程度偏差和错误,请理解并参考英文原文阅读。

阅读原文