Where do you even start?
The head of a college says: "Write us a disaster plan." You have a blank page. Do you start with the servers? The staff? The budget?
There is an order that works. Follow it and the plan writes itself.
Key words
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Scope | How big a problem is, and who and what it touches. |
| Inventory | A list of what you have, such as hardware, software and data. |
| Historic outage | A past event that stopped a service. |
| Risk assessment | Finding threats and weaknesses, and judging how likely and how harmful they are. |
| Likelihood | How likely it is that something will happen. |
| Business as usual | Normal day-to-day work. |
| Sign off | Formal approval from the right people. |
| Utilities | Basic services such as power, water and internet. |
| Network | Devices joined together so they can share data. |
| Phishing | A fake message that tricks you into giving away data. |
| Disaster recovery plan | A written plan for how to respond to an unplanned event. Short form: DRP. |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
By the end of this lesson
Note
I can put the steps of building a DRP in order: scope, gather information, assess risk, create the plan and get it approved.
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.
Step 1: define the scope
First, find out how big the event is. Look at four levels.
Environmental or technical: what kind of disaster is it? Organisational: are all users hit? Departmental: which departments are hit? Individual: which people are hit?
Step 2: gather information
Collect what the plan needs.
Historic outage details: what went wrong before, and how long it took to fix. Inventories: lists of hardware, software, networks and data. Contact details: for every person and company involved.
Step 3: risk-assess
A risk assessment finds threats and weaknesses in your assets. For each one, judge the likelihood and the impact on business as usual.
A flood in a basement server room might be unlikely but very harmful. A phishing email is likely but may be less harmful. Plan first for the biggest risks.
Check: steps 1 to 3
Have a go
Check: steps 1 to 3
4 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.