What is an IT Disaster Recovery Plan?

Updated 11/15/2023

Imagine this — You log in to work one day, and you’ve been hacked. 

Or there was flooding and your servers were destroyed.

Or maybe a power outage shut down your operating systems.

What do you do now? 

When operating a business, a million things could go wrong, leading to catastrophic data loss, business disruptions, and more. How you respond can save your company millions of dollars and impact whether or not you stay in business.

About 50% of small businesses are unable to reopen after experiencing a disaster, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

The good news is, you can protect your business operations by developing a comprehensive business continuity plan and IT disaster recovery plan.

In fact, the majority of small businesses with a disaster recovery plan (96%) are able to fully recover.

Be prepared in case disaster strikes — learn more about how to create an effective disaster recovery plan to protect your business.

Looking for an IT service provider? Use Clutch to search for top providers and filter by location, budget, and offered services to find the perfect partner for your business. 

What is an IT Disaster Recovery Plan? 

An IT disaster recovery plan, or a DRP, is a document that outlines the procedures and policies in place to minimize the effects of a disaster. As an important part of a business continuity plan, a disaster recovery plan helps businesses protect their IT systems, restore data, and resume operations quickly in case of: 

• Natural disasters 
• Cyber attacks
• Malware or ransomware attacks
• Hardware failures
• Fires 
• Human error

By outlining how the business will respond in case of an emergency, they can increase the likelihood of recovering their data and decrease downtime. 

A disaster recovery plan also often includes prevention guidelines to minimize the risk of these disasters, defines backup procedures, and determines strategies to detect potential threats. 

Why Do You Need an IT Disaster Recovery Plan? 

A robust IT disaster recovery plan hinges on understanding and safeguarding foundational elements. This encompasses the integrity of information technology infrastructure, streamlined business processes, secure storage of critical data, and ensuring the continuity of critical systems and applications. By establishing a solid foundation, businesses can mitigate the impact of disruptive events and maintain operational stability. 

1. Minimize downtime 
2. Establish emergency procedures 
3. Limit the financial impact of interruptions 
4. Restore data
5. Establish alternative means of operations

What is in an IT Disaster Recovery Plan?

A great disaster recovery strategy is thorough and includes information about how companies should proceed. Read on to learn about what to include in a disaster recovery plan.

IT Disaster Recovery Plan Template

1. RTO & RPO
2. Inventory
3. Personnel roles
4. Disaster recovery sites and storage
5. Disaster response procedures
6. Information about sensitive data
7. Communication plan
8. Physical facility needs

 
1. RTO & RPO

The goal of a disaster recovery plan is to get the most critical business operations up and running as quickly as possible.

Therefore, a disaster recovery plan should identify its recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective.

• Recovery time objective — the amount of time in which critical business operations can be down without massive detrimental effects.
• Recovery point objective — the minimum amount of data that must be accessible for normal business operations to resume.

With this outlined, companies can prioritize their goals and leap into action quickly.

2. Inventory

A disaster recovery strategy must include a complete and up-to-date list of the hardware and software assets used by the company. This ensures that the recovery plan addresses all assets.

Once a complete list has been compiled, companies should then prioritize their assets by categorizing them as either critical, important, or unimportant.

Obviously, assets that are essential to business operations (marked critical) will be addressed first during an emergency, followed by important assets. Only once the most important assets are addressed, will unimportant assets be taken care of.

3. Personnel Roles

Personnel roles define who is responsible for the disaster recovery plan process — usually IT professionals. Even before an emergency occurs, they’re responsible for backing up data and maintaining business operating systems.

Once a disaster has occurred, however, they become responsible for contacting third-party vendors, managing the crisis, and recovering from it.

4. List of disaster recovery sites and storage

Disaster recovery sites are where a company’s assets are located or where the assets will be moved to in case of an emergency. These sites are categorized into 3 types of sites:

• Hot sites — a Fully functional data center with IT equipment, personnel, and up-to-date customer data
• Warm sites — a functional data center without updated customer data
• Cold sites — Used to store data backups and systems, but they’re unable to run operations.

Connectivity and real-time responsiveness are pivotal operational aspects of an effective disaster recovery plan. Whether considering on-premises solutions or cloud-based alternatives, the ability to maintain connectivity and operate key applications in real-time is critical. The strategic inclusion of applications essential to daily operations ensures that the organization can swiftly recover and resume normal business functions.

Additionally, a disaster recovery plan should include information about where the company stores physical assets such as external hard drives. Generally, it’s recommended that these assets are stored off-site to protect

5. Disaster response procedures

One of the most essential parts of a disaster recovery plan addresses how to respond to a disaster. No matter what happens, a company should have a plan in place to jumpstart the disaster recovery process.

A disaster response plan should include clear disaster recovery procedures and steps for team members to follow as well as general policies that outline how to protect each asset.

6. Information about sensitive data

Whether a business is an ecommerce site, law firm, a healthcare company, or any other type of business, they must maintain sensitive data such as credit card information or personally identifiable information (PII).

To protect this data, companies need to follow compliance requirements and back up their data properly.

A disaster recovery plan outlines how this data is backed up, how companies can access the original data, and what should happen in case of a disaster.

7. Communication plan

In case of a disaster, company-wide communication is key to avoiding business disruption. Each team member — whether they‘re a part of the management team or are an employee — should already be aware of their responsibilities.

Additionally, companies need to know how to communicate with external stakeholders such as:

• Vendors and suppliers
• Customers
• Compliance authorities
• Media

When a disaster strikes, companies may need to release a PR statement, comment on social media, or send out information through their website to communicate with these stakeholders.

8. Physical facility needs

Some threats, such as hurricanes, fires, or floods, put facilities at risk. A disaster recovery plan should address these as well by outlining what features a facility needs to include in order for the business to resume normal operations.

This list can include everything from office space to furniture, computing needs, and IT equipment.

How to Create an IT Disaster Recovery Plan

1. Identify assets
2. Conduct a risk assessment
3. Develop a data backup plan
4. Outline recovery strategies
5. Communicate the plan to your team
6. Test and review the plan

Identify assets

If you haven’t already, start a list of all assets essential to your business’s IT infrastructure. Anything used for storage, management, control, or data transmission should be included. This includes computers, hardware, software, networks, and more. If you already have one, make sure it's updated or add assets as you acquire them.

Conduct a risk assessment

A risk assessment identifies what kind of damage could occur and the scale of that damage in instances of disaster. To do this, IT experts look for vulnerabilities or deficiencies that put the business at risk.

With a better understanding of these weaknesses, companies can conduct a business impact analysis to determine what is the most important to business operations and where to focus resources in case of disaster. This helps them mitigate risks and and create a plan for business recovery.

Develop a data backup plan

Review your backup processes to ensure that each system is working. You need to make sure that data is backed up regularly so information can be recovered. Therefore, data backup plans usually outline the frequency of which data is backed up.

In an era where cyber threats are omnipresent, a comprehensive IT disaster recovery plan must prioritize cybersecurity and data protection. Utilizing cloud backup, cloud disaster recovery, and other cloud services can enhance the security of critical data. These measures not only safeguard against potential data breaches but also contribute to the overall resilience of the IT infrastructure.

Additionally, companies must decide whether they will backup their data using hardware, software, or cloud storage options. Many argue that a combination of all three is the most secure. 

Outline recovery strategies

Once you’ve identified mission-critical assets and data and conducted a business impact analysis, you need to outline what to do depending on the type of disaster. Whether it’s a virtual, cloud, or facility disaster, the recovery team should know what to do next.

Find an IT service provider who can support disaster recovery for your business.

Select disaster recovery tools

Disaster recovery software can help organizations resume critical functions quickly. Disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) can offer powerful automations that transfer assets between public and private clouds, backup data based on custom policies, protect operating systems, support RTOs and RPOs, and more.

Here are some of the most popular DRaaS tools:

1. Zerto
2. Carbonite
3. Arcserve
4. Veritas
5. Datto

Test and review the plan

Even what seems like the best laid disaster recovery plan can fail. To make sure that data recovery is successful if the real thing happens, companies should run drills and test their plans.

Companies can learn from these tests and strengthen their emergency response procedures. 

Protect Your Business with an IT Disaster Recovery Plan

When disaster strikes, it’s better to be prepared. Contingency planning is key to ensuring your business is protected in case of natural disasters, hackers, or human errors.

A disaster recovery team, business continuity planning (BCP), and a clear strategy for managing events of a disaster are cornerstones of disaster preparedness. Anticipating potential disasters and understanding the impact of disruptive events on information systems are crucial steps in developing a resilient IT infrastructure. By proactively addressing these elements, businesses can navigate crises with greater agility and minimize downtime.

By outlining procedures in case of an emergency and communicating the plan with stakeholders, you can minimize risks to your business. More importantly, you’ll be able to act quickly when a disaster happens. In doing so, you’ll reduce downtime, protect data, and recover more quickly.

IT Disaster Recovery Plan Glossary

Alert — A notification about a disaster situation. 

Alternate site — An alternate location where the business can continue to operate. This can include another office location, computer center, or data processing center. 

Annual Loss Exposure/ Expectancy (ALE) — A risk management method to calculate losses from a disaster event. It’s calculated by multiplying  how often a disaster event occurs (annual rate of occurrence (ARO)) by the cost of a single event (SLE). ALE=ARO x SLE   

Application Recovery — The plan to recover business systems software and data after the processing platform has been restored or replaced. 

Asset — An item of value owned by an organization. This includes physical assets (buildings and equipment), finances, and non-tangible assets (business reputation). 

Backup (Data) — The process by which data is copied so it is still available in case the original information is lost, destroyed, or corrupted. 

Business continuity — An organized response plan in case there is a disruption to business operations. It aims to recover, resume, and restore functions within a certain time frame. 

Business Impact Analysis — The assessment of the quantitative and qualitative functions of a business and the impact of a disaster scenario on each of those processes. This is used to prioritize business function in case of an emergency. 

Business Interruption Costs — The financial impact of a disaster event. 

Business Interruption Insurance — Insurance coverage for disaster-related expenses. 

Call Tree — The communication system that depicts the order in which people should be contacted, including management, employees, customers, and vendors. 

Cold Site — An alternate facility that has all of the infrastructure, equipment, and communication tools needed to recover critical business functions. 

Command, Control, and Coordination — A crisis management process. Command refers to the authority figure that directs personnel and equipment resources. Control refers to the direct strategic, tactical, and operational operations required to manage the crisis. And coordination refers to cooperation between agencies and people involved in resolving the crisis. 

Contingency plan — a plan to respond to a disaster situation such as a system failure. 

Continuity of operations plan (COOP) — a plan that provides guidance and information on how to restore systems in case of emergencies or disasters. 

Corporate Governance — The process by which company leaders are required to carry out legal, moral, and regulatory responsibilities. 

Corporate Risk — Identifying and managing emerging risks based on how an organization handles their corporate governance. 

Cost Benefit Analysis — The financial assessment of business continuity management plans to determine if the validity of each option outweighs the cost. 

Critical Business Functions — Operations and functions that are absolutely necessary. Organizations can only function for a limited amount of time without these functions. 

Critical Infrastructure — Assets that are essential to the security of the organization. 

Damage Assessment — The process of measuring the extent of damage that occurred due to a crisis. Includes the impact on computer hardware, records, and office facilities.  

Data Center Recovery — The restoration of data center services and computer processing, usually at an alternative site. 

Data Mirroring — Critical data is replicated to another site. 
Data Protection — The insurance of confidentiality, integrity, and availability of necessary data. 

Denial of Access — The inability to access the organization’s normal working environment. 

Desk Check — a validation strategy in which somebody reviews a component for accuracy and completion. 

Disaster recovery — The IT component of a business continuity plan. 

Electronic Vaulting —  The electronic transmission of data to a server or storage facility. 

Emergency Procedures — A documented list of activities to prevent the loss of life, minimize injury, and reduce property damage in case of an emergency. 

Emergency Response Plan — A document addressing the immediate reaction to an emergency situation. 

Exposure — The susceptibility to a particular risk. 

Gap Analysis — Identified risks associated between business requirements and recovery availability. 

Hardening — the process of making something more secure. 
Integrated exercise / Integrated Test — a test run on multiple related components of a business continuity plan. 

Lead Time — The time it takes for a supplier to make equipment, provide services, or distribute supplies after an order. 

Loss — unrecoverable resources after a disaster event. 

Loss Reduction — Limiting exposure to a particular risk. 

Mission-Critical Activities — Activities that are essential to business operations. 

Mobile Recovery — a mobile resource used to support business recovery. 

N+1 — A fault tolerant strategy that includes multiple systems or components protected by one backup system 

Network Outage — An interruption of voice, data, or IP networks.

Off-Site Storage — An additional location where records are stored. 

Operational Risk – The risk of incurring a loss due to failed procedures. 

Orderly Shutdown — How to quickly suspend business functions in case of emergency or crisis. 

Qualitative Assessment — the process of evaluating a business function based on observations rather than data. 

Quantitative Assessment — the process of placing value on a business function using numeric values, such as data.  

Recoverable Loss —  Financial losses that may be reclaimed in the future thanks to insurance or litigation. 

Recovery Period — The amount of time between a disaster and when the organization returns to business as usual. 

Recovery Services Agreement — A contract with an external service provider that guarantees equipment, facilities, or services, within a certain time period after a disaster. 

Recovery Time Capability (RTC) — The amount of time it takes for business functions to become operational after a disaster. 

Recovery Time Objective (RTO) — The ideal timeline in which a company will be able to resume operations. 

Resilience — An organization’s ability to recover after a disaster, crisi, or emergency. 

Risk — Potential exposure to loss. 

Risk Assessment — The process of identifying risks to an organization and determining the likelihood of an event. 

Risk Management — The structures that are put in place to reduce risks. 

Salvage & Restoration — Measuring the impact of an event and determining how to recover losses. 

Service Continuity — The procedures required to maintain business operations in case of an interruption. 

Single Point of Failure (SPOF) — A unique service, activity, or process that is not backed up and is essential to business operations. Id a SPOF is lost, there would be a critical failure. 

Uninterruptible Power Supply — A backup electrical power supply that can provide continuous support to essential equipment. 

Validation Script — A Set of procedures to ensure the proper function of a system or process. 

Vital Records — Records that are essential to the functionality of the organization. 

Workaround Procedures — Alternative processes that may be used to get critical functions to work despite other issues such as the unavailability of specific application systems. 
 
Disaster Recovery Plan Resources for Your Business

• Homeland Security: Prepare Your Business for an Emergency
• IT Disaster Recovery Planning from Ready
   

About the Author

Hannah Hicklen Content Marketing Manager at Clutch

Hannah Hicklen is a content marketing manager who focuses on creating newsworthy content around tech services, such as software and web development, AI, and cybersecurity. With a background in SEO and editorial content, she now specializes in creating multi-channel marketing strategies that drive engagement, build brand authority, and generate high-quality leads. Hannah leverages data-driven insights and industry trends to craft compelling narratives that resonate with technical and non-technical audiences alike. 

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