Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning - Essay Example

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning Disasters and emergencies are occurrences that are synonymous to ourenvironments. At least every living human being must have witnessed, come across, involved in or heard of news of disasters or emergencies. Some of the disasters occur because of human error while others occur due to unpreventable natural catastrophes. Disasters due to human faults caused by inadvertently ignited fires, environmental pollution and outbreak of diseases due to negligence and poor hygiene are often devastating but avoidable.

Disasters occurring due to natural forces and catastrophes on the other hand are unpreventable but predictable. Predictability of such disasters helps in the management and control of destruction causable by the catastrophes. Management of disasters due to natural catastrophes usually involves relocation of people and businesses from the vulnerable regions. Disasters and emergencies of any type have the potential to cause severe losses for businesses. Many businesses have ended up losing not only their merchandises, but also crucial information and documents for the running of the particular businesses.

It is for the previous reasons that businesses should establish proper mechanisms and measures to keep safe information and documents deemed crucial for their operations. To ensure easy recovery and smooth business continuity, businesses also need to insure their operations with reputable insurance companies if possible, more than one and located in different areas. For better understanding about impact and extent of losses incurred by businesses in case of a disaster, it is important to review the recent catastrophe of Hurricane Sandy.

Hurricane Sandy did not just occur without prior scientific predictions. In fact, NASA had made clear predictions concerning the developments of this hurricane and promptly issued evacuation warning clarified by clear pictures depicting regions that it was going to affect. Earlier warnings saw evacuation exercises conducted several days before its occurrence; a move that significantly reduced loses of lives and property. However, on its arrival on the North East part of America, Hurricane Sandy still found many things and businesses to destroy.

To begin with, the massive force of Hurricane Sandy destroyed many power lines, affecting power supply within the victim area as well as the unaffected neighborhood. The Hurricane Sandy also resulted to transport problems as it made roads and other modes of transport impassable. This resulted to massive losses to transport companies considering the three days it lasted. There was also an outbreak of fire triggered by electric faults. These fires burnt down business premises, important machines, and business materials stored in the offices.

Precisely, apart from destroying the tangible assets of businesses, Hurricane Sandy resulted to serious loss of information and destruction of files crucial for the running of information. Generally, Hurricane Sandy led to losses amounting to $50 billion. This amount included the total losses incurred by businesses that operated within the affected region and those used in rescue mission. Since some disasters are hard to predict and prevent, it is important for any business organization to define practical disaster recovery procedures and workable business continuity plan.

Data backup defines a very important practice required of any serious business that fears instability caused by unforeseen disasters. Even if a disaster is foreseeable, businesses should still draw proper data backup procedures, as some disasters tend to spread to affect regions not indicated in predictions. Techniques for data backup vary from one business to another depending on whether the data is manual or digital. In the case of manual data, backup for important business information stored in files can entail businesses renting spaces for storage in banks.

Banks provide safer places for keeping valuable items, which may include crucial business information. To ensure more security for manual data, businesses can keep same copies of information in two or more banks located in different geographical locations. This is important considering that it will be hard for a single catastrophe to hit all the geographical regions within country. Modern computer and digital technologies have made data backup even easier and efficient. Businesses with computers as the implements for information system are safer in case of a catastrophe.

Businesses with computers can consider using hardware like floppy disks, flash disks, memory cards, CDs, DVDs and portable hard disks as information backup devices. To achieve this mission, business organizations need to copy sorted files of information to the hardware devices preferred for backup. Moreover, business with computers connected to the internet can further enhance their information backup systems by transferring daily business information to emails or other online websites. Internet backup system is particularly important considering that it enhances safety of data even when the hardware backup system is lost or vandalized.

Backup testing is another important task required of a business organization to ensure availability and compactness of the information. Testing for backup systems like hardware is particularly important to help detect any potential virus before massive damage. Testing can even be possible when updating the already stored information or adding new information. Data backup alone without insurance of the assets and operation of a business will not help in disaster recovery and business continuity.

Insurance entails signing of agreement between a business organization and another business usually referred to as insurer to cover the later in case of a disaster. The business organization seeking emergency coverage makes periodical financial contributions, called premiums to the insurer as per agreement. Insurance helps to shield the insured against massive losses that could occur during a disaster. In the event of a disaster, the insurance company pays indemnity to the affected business organization to reconstruct its affected assets.

In some cases, the insurance company providing emergency cover does not have to give direct financial payment to the client, but rather reconstruct the spoilt assets. Due to uncertainties as to the nature of a looming disaster, it is usually important that business organizations insure their assets and operations against disasters like fire, flood, earthquakes, storms, and hurricanes among others depending on the most prevalent types of disasters to hit the particular region. When a business insures its operations with an insurance company, it will be able to claim for fiscal compensation to restore its infrastructure destroyed by the catastrophe.

If in case there the given business does not incur destruction of infrastructure, it may demand for compensation to facilitate little repairs of the structures and assets. After reconstructing or refurbishing infrastructure destroyed by catastrophe, a business organization then embarks to thorough information and document recovery and sorting the documents with relevance to their purposes and users. A business organization can achieve this task by collecting banked files in case of manual data keeping technique, and hard ware devices and downloading emailed documents in case of a digital information system.

In conclusion, disasters and emergencies are very serious occurrences and that are not new to our societies. Some of the disasters are predictable while some are hard to predict. Disaster causes serious losses to the affected society, which occurs in form of losses of human lives, and financial and information losses for businesses. Businesses tend to endure serious effects of disasters as some end up losing information crucial for their lifetime operations. It is therefore important for any serious business to develop serious and practical disaster recovery and business continuity plan to help in easy recovery of its operations.

The best ways to ensure continuity after disaster is by developing and identifying a workable data backup system and insuring asters and operations.