The night the power went out
At 2 am the power fails at a small online shop. The servers stop. Orders are lost. Nobody knows who to call. By 9 am, 400 customers have gone elsewhere.
A plan written before the day would have said exactly what to do. Today you learn why every organisation needs one.
Key words
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Disaster recovery plan | A written plan that says how to respond to an unplanned event. Short form: DRP. |
| Incident | An event that harms or could harm a service. |
| Mean time to recovery | The average time it takes to get back to normal after a fault. Short form: MTTR. |
| Disruption | Something that stops normal work. |
| Economic impact | The money lost because of a problem. |
| Alternative means | Another way to keep working when the usual way fails. |
| Restoration | Getting a service back to how it was. |
| Risk management | Finding risks and deciding what to do about them. |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
By the end of this lesson
Note
I can say what a disaster recovery plan is and give seven reasons why it matters.
Starter: what you already know
Have a go
Starter: what you already know
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.
What a DRP is
A disaster recovery plan is a formal, written document. It gives clear steps for how to respond to unplanned events.
Events include natural disasters, power cuts, cyber attacks and anything else that causes disruption.
It supports risk management. You plan for the risk before it happens.
Why it matters: time and disruption
A good plan brings down the mean time to recovery, or MTTR. This is the average time to get going again.
It also cuts how long normal work is interrupted. And it limits the size of the disruption and the damage.
Why it matters: money, backups and issues
It cuts the economic impact, because every minute offline costs money.
It sets up alternative means of working before they are needed. It allows a quick restoration of service. And it helps to spot issues, such as staff who were never trained.
Check: the reasons
Have a go
Check: the reasons
4 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.