If you are unaware of what a disaster recovery plan is, you may not be prepared when a disaster occurs.
If a disaster occurs and your organization does not have a disaster recovery plan implemented, you may lose hundreds of thousands of dollars and be forced to address a variety of other problems caused by the disaster.
According to Tech Target, 40% of outages cost between 100,000 and 1 million dollars. For many organizations, this price will devastate a business and can easily be avoided with a well-organized disaster recovery plan.
Coeo has helped thousands of organizations with their network infrastructure and has executed disaster recovery plans for these organizations.
We want you to know what a disaster recovery plan is so you can avoid the potential consequences of a disaster when they occur.
By the end of this article, you will know the different types of disasters and what a disaster recovery plan is.
Different types of disasters
Upon hearing the word “disaster,” you may be wondering what that entails. In a nutshell though, a disaster is any kind of event that causes destruction to your business or your customers.
The different types of disasters that can occur include:
● Cyberattacks
Cyberattacks, malware, DDOS, and ransomware attacks are all disasters that can negatively impact your network and business performance.
These attacks can not only cost your organization thousands, maybe even millions of dollars, but they can also negatively impact your network for an unknown period of time.
If a cyberattack on your organization affects your customers, it can tarnish your organization’s reputation.
Making sure to recover your network quickly from disasters will ensure quality business performance and good customer relationships.
● Equipment failure and power outages
Equipment failure and power outages can occur at any moment and without warning.
If you do not implement a disaster recovery plan, your network and your customer’s network may lose data packets as a result of a power outage or equipment failure.
If you are not able to quickly recover following a power outage or equipment failure, your network may be down for an extended period resulting in frustrated customers and loss of revenue.
● Natural disaster
Natural disasters can occur at any time and in any location throughout the country.
Most times there is nothing an organization can do to save the network from going down following the destruction of equipment at a manufacturing facility, data center, or office.
What is disaster recovery?
All organizations can be subject to some sort of disaster at any time and if you are not prepared your organization may lose its functioning network. This will negatively impact most or all of your stakeholders.
A disaster will cause significant or irreparable damage if no disaster recovery plan is in place.
Additionally, some organizations in various industries are required to create and follow a disaster recovery plan and may experience legal consequences if not followed.
A disaster recovery plan is driven by a strategy that telecom providers create for their customers to identify the steps that are needed to get the network back up and running.
Not all telecom providers offer disaster recovery plans but most providers that do, cater these plans to the organization and the industry they are in.
The first step an organization must take to implement a disaster recovery plan is to review the risk factors, recovery goals, and the technology environment of the organization.
To develop a disaster recovery plan, you must identify your Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO).
● Recovery Point Objective
The RPO is the maximum age of files an organization must recover from backup storage for normal operations to resume after a disaster occurs. In other words, the RPO determines how often a system backs up data.
For example, if a system has an RPO of three hours, the system is backed up at least every three hours.
However, since RPO is the maximum time a system takes to back up, it can be backed up any time before the three-hour mark.
● Recovery Time Objective
The RTO of an organization’s system is the estimated amount of time a network can be down without causing significant or irreparable damage to the network and/or organization.
Depending on the organization and its industry, a network can be down for several days to a week without causing damage. Conversely, for other systems, a few seconds can cause significant harm.
For example, a healthcare organization such as a hospital might experience severe damage to its system or business if its system is down for even a few seconds.
More importantly, a downed system can cause harm to the lives of patients if it is not functioning again quickly.
On the other hand, an organization that does not heavily rely on the internet or its network to perform daily tasks may be able to afford network downtime that lasts more than a few days.
Both RPOs and RTOs are used by the provider to create disaster recovery plans that cater to the needs of the organization.
Next steps to identifying disaster recovery steps in your organization’s network operations
Now you know the different types of disasters that can impact an organization’s network, what a disaster recovery plan is, and how it can help your organization.
This will allow you to determine if your organization should invest in a disaster recovery plan.
If your organization has experienced a downed network as a result of a disaster or wants to prepare its network if a disaster were to take place, a disaster recovery plan may be a good investment for your organization.
No one wants to have a downed network, especially if it fails without warning as a result of a disaster. A disaster recovery plan will ensure your organization is back up as soon as possible.
Coeo knows how important a reliable network is to an organization and has delivered disaster recovery plans to thousands of organizations as a way to improve their network's uptime.
We want you to know the types of disasters that can take down your network and what a disaster recovery plan is so you can determine if this is a good fit for your organization.
If you would like to speak with our team to learn more about disaster recovery plans or ask any questions you may have you can schedule an appointment. 
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