Disaster Recovery Plans – Paper or Virtual?

A few years back I was visiting a friend who owned a business. He employed approximately 75 people. About 50 worked from the office while the rest were remote or visiting customers. During our conversation about things in general, the topic turned to the recent flooding of some buildings in town that were close to a river. Several business were affected and several would never reopen.

The topic turned to disaster recovery and I wondered aloud how many of the affected businesses had Disaster Recovery (DR) plans. My friend Jim immediately volunteered that he had one. Jim said they planned Disaster Recovery (DR) about 3 years prior. Impressed I asked if he would let me see their plan. He opened a cupboard and pulled out a 3 ring binder that said “XYZ Corp – Disaster Recovery Plan” “Sept 2007”.

It was a well thought out plan but there were problems. If they had been flooded, the plan would have been useless because his copy and others were probably in the same building! Added to this, a key person who was to direct the recovery effort had retired and some of the others had left. His wry comment “at least a couple of spiders found a home in my Disaster Recovery(DR) plan”!!

This brings me to the topic paper or virtual? I vote hands down for virtual.

Paper

• Easy to write
• Updating is daunting and should be paid close attention to
  Copies should be maintained offsite
• Making changes is time consuming. All copies should be updated and version control should be maintained
• Executing plan is cumbersome – all key players have to be notified individually

Virtual

• Easy to implement
• Commercial platform makes the process of writing a plan easy
• Accessible from any location
• Secure
• In built communications system makes for easy declaration and messaging of key players
• Non Disaster Recovery (DR) team employees can be notified about what they should do during this period

All in all, with the advent of Disaster Recovery (DR) platforms, the process of developing a plan and keeping it updated is much easier. Cost of such services are very reasonable given the benefit they impart.