Recovery Testing: A Required Step in Disaster Preparedness
Organizations need to know their recovery plans will work before a disaster strikes. By testing, they can identify plan strengths and weaknesses - and develop a road map for making any needed changes to improve disaster preparedness.
A recent survey commissioned by SunGard Availability Services and conducted by Harris Interactive, found that testing of disaster recovery plans delivers value to organizations. Fifty-three percent of IT executives said disaster recovery (DR) plan testing uncovered deficiencies in their organization's plans. Ninety-four percent of IT executives felt testing their DR plans made them better prepared to handle the most recent unplanned outage they experienced. Forty-six percent of IT executives surveyed said they tested their DR plans two or more times each year - with another 31 percent saying they tested annually.
"Your recovery response will only be as successful as your most recent recovery test," said Bob DiLossi, director, crisis management, SunGard Availability Services. "Testing is a required component of disaster preparedness. It can help organizations speed up recovery processes, mitigate business risk and improve information availability and data integrity."
To help organizations in developing disaster recovery testing strategies, SunGard offers the following counsel based on assisting customers with over 100,000 recovery tests:
Frequent testing leads to peace of mind. There is only one way to know for sure if a disaster recovery plan will do its job and that is to test it. The testing frequency best suited for your organization is dependent on your specific IT environment and availability requirements. But in general, SunGard industry experts recommend recovery testing at least two times a year.
Anticipate the unexpected. Typical test processes will uncover DR plan deficiencies, such as the required data files are not backed up and available or data files are not currently stored off site for recovery. Best practices test processes will help prepare an organization for the unexpected - such as a data center no longer being accessible and recovery requiring the relocation of personnel to a remote facility or mobile data center.
Embed disaster recovery in change control process. Most data centers are in constant flux with continual hardware, software and network changes. Business processes change too; responding to new needs, personnel and process improvements. Disaster recovery should be involved in the change control process - otherwise, recovery plans will be outdated before they are put into action. Testing is a good way to find needed updates and interdependencies that may have been overlooked.
IT and business need to work as one team. Business units have to communicate their availability requirements to IT - what are the most critical systems, applications and data to restore first. It is better to assess how these needs can be met during a test than during a disaster. A recovery test is a good vehicle to form the IT/business relationships and communications channels that will help organizations overcome disaster challenges.
SunGard Recovery Assistance Services help organizations review recovery readiness, provide expert technical specialists to perform operating system, application and data restoration functions, and develop strategies for disaster recovery plan improvements after testing. SunGard supports the most commonly used IT infrastructure platforms with its testing services, and provides hot-site, mobile data center and remote testing options. For example, with remote testing, organizations avoid the logistical planning, inconvenience and expenses of sending technical staff members to an off-site location for a test.