DISASTER RECOVERY AND COOP

Today’s consumers expect businesses, especially healthcare, financial services and emergency services like 911, to provide their services regardless of the situation.

California customers don’t care about a flood in Maryland, and Arizona customers are sorry that a blizzard is affecting New York. However, the blizzard doesn't interrupt their day, and they still need their issues resolved.

Industry Content Supporter: Stephen Paskel 

VP, Senior Technology & Global Operations Manager 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-paskel 

Any business disruption is a potential loss of revenue and customer base. Disaster Recovery (DR) and Continuity of Operations plans (COOP) are often misunderstood.

COOP focuses on continuing business services in the event of any interruption. DR refers to the company’s business data, specifically how to store and recover it as quickly as possible. Consider COOP proactive, preparing beforehand, while DR plans what happens afterward.

Continuity of Operations (COOP) is a federal government initiative required by a presidential directive to ensure that agencies can continue performing essential functions under a wide range of circumstances.

What’s good for the government is suitable for private business. Today, many circumstances, such as bad weather or broken technology, bring down contact centers, and having a continuity plan is mission critical. It’s a good business practice, yet many organizations overlook it.

An actively managed program is required for developing, training, and maintaining the COOP plan. The COOP document illustrates how the company will perform its essential functions during a disruption.

How much is your company willing to risk? Many companies try to save money on DR plans because it often requires additional hardware and resources. Until, for whatever reason, disaster hits, critical data like employee time cards are lost, and the company cannot pay employees.

Then, companies take disaster recovery (DR) more seriously. Don’t wait for disaster to strike first. Disaster recovery is a documented plan determining the process and procedure for protecting business data and IT infrastructure. It also plans for server availability, downtime scenarios, and maintenance.

A disaster recovery test examines each step in a disaster recovery plan, as outlined in the organization’s business continuity/disaster recovery plan. Many companies are proud of themselves upon completing a successful test of their DR/COOP plan. While it is a great accomplishment, this is not the end of the road. Periodic DR testing is often neglected because of a lack of resources, and the plan seems “good enough.” A disaster is not the time to see if your plan works. Testing boils down to communication. Data recovery and application recovery beyond that depend on your recovery point and recovery time objectives.

Testing is like a fire drill. Organizations today regularly have fire drills and emergency communication tests with employees. A DR test should also be completed periodically and be incorporated into planned maintenance and staff training. The test results are the only way to determine whether your plan works, what changes are recommended, and what should be left alone. The testing phase is as critical as the plan itself. Please don’t skip it!