Disaster Response Recovery Transition

Disaster response recovery transition periods are very important as this is one are that can easily be overlooked. How does the organization move from the initial response to a disaster to the more calculable recovery from disaster operations?

Disaster response recovery transition –

The initial response may be to get an assessment team at ground zero to make the assessment. Then the recovery options need to be assessed. Here is a list of some of the things that should be taken into consideration. Recovery options need to be considered for:

People and accommodation - including alternative premises either owned, leased or through agreement with a third party; reciprocal arrangements with other organizations; and rapid procurement of alternative premises or refurbishment of existing premises.

Consideration should also be given to the respective location of the proposed premises, the mobility of the staff who will be supporting the recovered business operations including IT staff and the total number of staff required to support the business process.

IT systems and networks - these options need to be identified and agreed by the IT Manager responsible for ITSCM and include recovery of IT systems, hardware, applications, software and networks, and the data used within these systems and facilities.

This relies on the Availability of effective backups to enable restoration of the service and needs to be performed in collaboration with Availability Management. This strategy should also include the implementation of Continuity mechanisms to support local disruption/interruption of IT Services supporting critical business processes, such as disk mirroring, UPS or dual power supplies, dual communication links, etc.

Critical services such as power, telecommunications, water, couriers and post.

Critical assets such as paper records and reference material.