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Disaster recovery
Disaster recovery

Disaster recovery

The execution of a predetermined plan and infrastructure to get your IT systems back from the brink after an event compromises the core systems.


Disaster recovery is a set of policies, tools, and procedures that facilitates the recovery or continuation of vital technology infrastructure and systems following a natural or human-induced disaster.

What is it?

A plan and infrastructure to bring back the status quo following serious issues to core IT systems.

What’s in it for you?

Organizations that cannot quickly recover following a catastrophic event do not last.

What are the trade-offs?

Incomplete plans and cutting corners can undermine efforts to recover.

How is it being used?

In a 24/7, digital world, disaster recovery is more important than ever.

What is it?


A catastrophic incident can be something that places an organization's activities at risk, from cyber threats to power outages and infrastructure shortages to cope with natural disasters. Disaster recovery aims to ensure that the company runs as close to normal as possible. 


The disaster recovery process involves preparation and testing and can include a separate physical backup site to resume operations. An emergency coordination plan is another aspect of the crisis management strategy, allowing the enterprise to communicate and update employees and related emergency response resources.


A disaster recovery plan should be integrated with a business continuity plan to ensure business operations can properly use the disaster recovery infrastructure.

What’s in for you?


Many businesses will have compliance, liability or insurance requirements to have some form of disaster recovery plan in place. But even without that imperative, planning for recovery from a disaster makes good business sense.

What are the trade offs?


One of the biggest risks in disaster recovery is inadequate planning. There is a mistaken belief that disaster recovery is simply a case of backing data up and being able to retrieve it. 


Successful disaster recovery is far more complicated than that and entails dealing with many in-flight and partially concluded tasks. This can be complex and needs careful consideration and forethought.


Some business leaders choose to minimize spending on disaster recovery. While this may have been understandable when mirroring data center operations was hugely costly, the advances in cloud computing make full-scale disaster recovery a viable investment for firms of all sizes. You can use cloud computing to handle a large portion of disaster recovery needs.

How is it being used?


As enterprises are increasingly expected to operate 24/7, with digital services front and center, the need to be able to recover from inevitable failure is more pressing than ever. Cloud-based recovery services are making this possible.

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