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Running Head: ORGANIZATION’S DISASTER RECOVERY PLAN

Organization’s Disaster Recovery Plan
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Components
A disaster recovery plan is essential when it comes to the unpredictable moments when
disasters such as floods, cyber-attacks, a hurricane or fire strike. This plan works efficiently even
when it comes to matters to do with cybersecurity to help keep the impacts at a minimum and
therefore, leading to the business not suffering a blow to the information kept for the goalrealization of the organization as well as the financial aspect of it. The disaster recovery plan is
usually the difference between a company going down under or being able to rise or recover
from disasters. For a disaster recovery plan to function well there should be components present
to help with the realization of its effectiveness. Taking this into consideration, there are ten
components that are in a disaster recovery plan (Wallace & Webber, 2010).
The first important component of a disaster recovery plan is an overview and description
of the plan. Here, a business or organization is required to have a document that entails
information on the scope of the plan for the business, the assumptions made regarding the
disaster or disasters that might hit the business as well as the objectives regarding disaster
recovery. In this case, there ought to be the location as well as the address of the site of
production and the site of recovery. On this note, it is important to include the directions and the
maps that are required for the sites that are in focus. The description of the timeline of the
disaster recovery plan is included here too. This gives the company enough time to have come up
with mechanisms to deal with various disasters. This means that the company will not be caught
unaware without ways of mitigating disasters. Most importantly, the company should be aware
of the triggers of the activation and the declaration of disasters so that arrangements can be done
promptly.

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The strategy to be used in recovery is another significant component. Once disaster
strikes a company, it ought to be in such a position as not being caught off-guard. This is to say
that the company should have a way of coming back from a disaster instead of not being ready
for it, which may then lead to massive losses for the company or even loss of the company itself.
The investments put into a company should be such that they are not affected by the disasters
occurring around it. In the case of a company's critical systems, there should be a description of
the methods as well as tools to be applied in their recovery. With these tools and methods, then it
is safe to say that the company has a chance at going back to being successful at their focus on
meeting the needs of their clients. When we talk about the tools and methods to be applied in
such a case, this is referring to the locations and the names of the company's backups to be put
into use. Other than these two, it is also an important step to have the relevant procedure that is
required for the retrieval of the files used for backup (Gregory & Rothstein, 2013).
Communication is an essential part of any business as well as company that is looking to
grow and remain standing during and after disasters. There should be call lists that have been
updated and are accurate. This being said, a communication plan is also important in this case. A
company's infrastructure is an integral part of it, and it cannot function without this part since it
enables the company to effectively and accurately meet the needs of its clientele. Other than the
infrastructure being of significance to a company's well-being and success, the people who work
within and without the company are just as important. People who are in control of the various
parts of the system have to be present for disaster recovery and the process to be possible in the
first place. On that note, the disaster recovery plan should have information of the various
members important to this cause together with their titles. Their contact numbers and email
addresses should also be provided so that the disaster recovery team easily accesses this

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information. The senior leadership at the company ought to have access to such information
since they are involved with the disaster recovery process. Disaster declaration should be
conducted by an authorized list of people who are trusted to do this job and, therefore, they
should also have their details provided. The other people who should also be included in disaster
recovery are the team to conduct damage assessment as well as the one conducting recovery.
There should also be an inclusion of the conference bridge line (Snedaker & Rima, 2014).
The other important component to be considered is the critical infrastructure that is
required at the site of recovery. The infrastructure ought to be listed down. The critical
infrastructure ensures that the systems in place are functioning and can be operated. This
infrastructure can be said to be behind the company's rise from the ashes in when disaster strikes
which then enables the business to carry on as normal. Some of the equipment to be listed down
as critical infrastructure are those used for storage, switches, firewalls, connectivity to the
internet and LANs and routers. Other than a list of infrastructure, the list of servers providing
service to the company should also be provided. The configurations of these servers should not
be left behind for the sake of ease of access. These servers are provided for the software used in
restoration and recovery, and for the virtual and security host servers. In short, there has to be a
list of systems as well as applications of a critical nature that are given priority when it comes to
matters to do with disaster recovery (Wells et al. 2007).
The other components important to disaster recovery are the system and critical
applications that ought to be prioritized. What becomes clear is the fact that all the applications
may not be critical to the business. The disaster recovery plan, therefore, should be inclusive of
the databases and applications listed to this function, while still providing information on the
sequence that should be used in the restoration of these applications and databases. Another list

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that should be made should be one of the recovery time objective (RTO) and the recovery point
objective (RPO) which are unique to the needs of a company and therefore, should be listed for
every critical system. Documentation should a...