Disaster Recovery Plan
Also known as: DR Plan · IT Emergency Plan
A disaster recovery plan is a written procedure defining who does what, and in what order, to bring operations back after an IT failure.
A disaster recovery plan spells out, in advance, exactly which steps to take during a major IT failure - a server dying, ransomware, a power outage, water damage - and who is responsible for each one. It exists because during an actual outage nobody has the calm headspace to figure out which system needs restoring first or where the credentials for it are kept.
In practice, a disaster recovery plan is a list of critical systems in priority order, the credentials needed or where they are safely stored, contact details for IT providers, and a step-by-step restoration procedure. It is written before anything goes wrong, not during, and it gets rehearsed regularly so it actually holds up when needed.
The most common mistake is a plan that exists only as a document and has never been tested. A plan stored on the very server that just failed, or whose access credentials live only in one person's head, is no help when it actually matters.
What it means in practice
For a business this means: the real question is not whether a disaster recovery plan exists, but whether it is reachable from outside your own IT and whether anyone has actually rehearsed it. NDVDL builds disaster recovery plans together with the business and stores them so they stay reachable even when the very system they describe has gone down.
Is this handled properly at your site?
We look at how it actually stands with you — and say honestly whether anything needs doing.
Related terms
All termsA term from your quote missing here?
Send us the passage you do not follow. We will explain it — with no obligation to order anything.