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Over the course of this class you will be constructing key portions of a disaster recovery plan for a company or organization you are familiar with

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Over the course of this class you will be constructing key portions of a disaster recovery plan for a company or organization you are familiar with. Submit a summary describing the candidate you have selected. You need to choose a client such as an actual place of employment, a local company, or some other organization. It doesn't matter if it is for-profit or not-for-profit. What is important is that it is engaged in some ongoing regular business activities and you are familiar with how those activities are completed. This write-up should be 1-2 pages, and include an overview of your particular company’s operations or the organization’s activities. You will need to change the name and do not include any unique information that could be used to identify your selected organization. Use realistic information but avoid anything that might be proprietary. For example, you may use 555 for all phone numbers, or say the company is located in Anytown, USA.

Spend some quality time thinking about this selection. I must approve your Phase I

Disaster Recovery: Best Practices White Paper Document ID: 15118 Introduction Performance Indicators for Disaster Recovery High−Level Process Flow for Disaster Recovery Management Awareness Identify Possible Disaster Scenarios Build Management Awareness Obtain Management Sign−Off and Funding Disaster Recover Planning Process Establish a Planning Group Perform Risk Assessments and Audits Establish Priorities for Your Network and Applications Develop Resiliency Design and Recovery Strategy Prepare Up−to−Date Inventory and Documentation of the Plan Develop Verification Criteria and Procedures Implementation Resiliency and Backup Services Assess Network Resiliency Review and Implement Backup Services Vendor Support Services Related Information Introduction A disaster recovery plan covers both the hardware and software required to run critical business applications and the associated processes to transition smoothly in the event of a natural or human−caused disaster. To plan effectively, you need to first assess your mission−critical business processes and associated applications before creating the full disaster recovery plan. This best−practice document outlines the steps you need to take to implement a successful disaster recovery plan. We'll look at the following critical steps for best−practice disaster recovery: Management Awareness, Disaster Recovery Planning, Resiliency and Backup Services, and Vendor Support Services. Performance Indicators for Disaster Recovery Performance indicators provide the mechanism by which you can measure the success of your disaster recovery process and plan. Performance indicators for disaster recovery are somewhat different from those used to measure network performance, because they are a combination of project status and test runs of infrastructure. Indicators of success include: • Periodic reports from the planning group to senior management. • Representation of the network design team on the disaster recovery planning team. • Periodic tests to verify implementation of the disaster recovery plan and reports about gaps and risks. • A review process that includes the deployment of new solutions. • Analysis of the disaster recovery handling, effectiveness, and impact on the business (after a disaster occurs). Cisco − Disaster Recovery: Best Practices White Paper High−Level Process Flow for Disaster Recovery The following diagram outlines your workflow for managing disaster recovery. Management Awareness Management Awareness is the first and most important step in creating a successful disaster recovery plan. To obtain the necessary resources and time required from each area of your organization, senior management has to understand and support the business impacts and risks. Several key tasks are required to achieve management awareness. Identify Possible Disaster Scenarios First, identify the top ten disasters and analyze their impact on your business. Your analysis should cover effects on communications with suppliers and customers, the impact on operations, and disruption on key Cisco − Disaster Recovery: Best Practices White Paper business processes. You should complete this pre−study in advance of the disaster recovery planning process, knowing that it will require additional verification during the planning process. The following are examples of possible disasters: fire, storm, water, earthquake, chemical accidents, nuclear accidents, war, terrorist attacks and other crime, cold winter weather, extreme heat, airplane crash (loss of key staff), and avalanche. The possibility of each scenario depends on factors such as geographical location and political stability. Note: Most disasters are caused by fire and we therefore recommend you start with fire as your first case study. Assess the impact of a disaster on your business from both a financial and physical (infrastructure) perspective by asking the following questions: • How much of the organization's resources could be lost? • What are the total costs? • What efforts are required to rebuild? • How long will it take to recover? • What is the impact on the overall organization? • How are customers affected, what is the impact on them? • How much will it affect the share price and market confidence? Build Management Awareness Senior management needs to be involved in the disaster recovery planning process, and should be aware of the risks and potential impact on the organization. The first study on disaster recovery should include an estimate of possible costs and time to implement a disaster recovery strategy. Once management understands the financial, physical, and business costs associated with a disaster, it is then able to build a strategy and ensure that this strategy is implemented across the organization. Obtain Management Sign−Off and Funding The senior management has to agree on the disaster recovery project, as well as provide financial and human resources for the project. The first step is the announcement of the disaster recovery project and kickoff of a planning group or steering committee, which should be led by a senior management person. Disaster Recover Planning Process In the disaster recovery planning stage, you should identify the mission−critical, important, and less−important processes, systems, and services in your network and put in place plans to ensure these are protected against the effects of a disaster. Key elements of disaster recovery planning include the following: • Establish a planning group. • Perform risk assessments and audits. • Establish priorities for your network and applications. • Develop recovery strategies. • Prepare an up−to−date inventory and documentation of the plan. • Develop verification criteria and procedures. • Implement the plan. Cisco − Disaster Recovery: Best Practices White Paper Establish a Planning Group Establish a planning group to manage the development and implementation of the disaster recovery strategy and plan. Key people from each business unit or operational area should be members of the team, responsible for all disaster recovery activities, planning, and providing regular monthly reports to senior management. Perform Risk Assessments and Audits In order to create the disaster recovery plan, your planning group needs to thoroughly understand the business and its processes, technology, networks, systems, and services. The disaster recovery planning group should prepare a risk analysis and business impact analysis that includes at least the top ten potential disasters. The risk analysis should include the worst−case scenario of completely damaged facilities and destroyed resources. It should address geographic situations, current design, lead−times of services, and existing service contracts. Each analysis should also include an estimate on the financial impacts of replacing damaged equipment, drafting additional resources, and setting up extra service contracts. Establish Priorities for Your Network and Applications When you've analyzed the risks posed to your business processes from each disaster scenario, assign a priority level to each business process. Priorities should be based on the following levels: • Mission Critical: Network or application outage or destruction that would cause an extreme disruption to the business, cause major legal or financial ramifications, or threaten the health and safety of a person. The targeted system or data requires significant effort to restore, or the restoration process is disruptive to the business or other systems. • Important: Network or application outage or destruction that would cause a moderate disruption to the business, cause minor legal or financial ramifications, or provide problems with access to other systems. The targeted system or data requires a moderate effort to restore, or the restoration process is disruptive to the system. • Minor: Network or application outage or destruction that would cause a minor disruption to the business. The targeted systems or network can be easily restored. Develop Resiliency Design and Recovery Strategy Just as the analysis of the business processes determine the priorities of the network, applications, and systems, the same analysis should be applied to your network design. The site priorities and location of key services contribute to a fault−tolerant design, with resilience built into the network infrastructure, and services and resources spread over a wide geography. Develop a recovery strategy to cover the practicalities of dealing with a disaster. Such a strategy may be applicable to several scenarios; however, the plan should be assessed against each scenario to identify any actions specific to different disaster types. Your plan should address the following: people, facilities, network services, communication equipment, applications, clients and servers, support and maintenance contracts, additional vendor services, lead−time of Telco services, and environmental situations. Your recovery strategy should include the expected down time of services, action plans, and escalation procedures. Your plan should also determine thresholds, such as the minimum level at which can the business operate, the systems that must have full functionality (all staff must have access), and the systems that can be minimized. Cisco − Disaster Recovery: Best Practices White Paper Prepare Up−to−Date Inventory and Documentation of the Plan It is important to keep your inventory up−to−date and have a complete list of all locations, devices, vendors, used services, and contact names. The inventory and documentation should be part of the design and implementation process of all solutions. Your disaster recovery documentation should include: • Complete inventory, including a prioritization of resources. • Review process structure assessments, audits, and reports. • Gap and risk analysis based on the outcome of the assessments and audits. • Implementation plan to eliminate the risks and gaps. • Disaster recovery plan containing action and escalation procedures. • Training material. Develop Verification Criteria and Procedures Once you've created a draft of the plan, you should create a verification process to prove the disaster recover strategy and, if your strategy is already implemented, review and test the implementation. It's important that you test and review the plan frequently. We recommend documenting the verification process and procedures, and designing a proof−of−concept−process. The verification process should include an experience cycle; disaster recovery is based on experience and each disaster has different rules. You may want to call on experts to develop and prove the concept, and product vendors to design and verify the plan. Implementation Now it's time to make some key decisions: How should your plan be implemented? Who are the critical staff members, and what are their roles? Leading up to the implementation of your plan, try to practice for disaster recovery using roundtable discussions, role playing, or disaster scenario training. Again, it's essential that your senior management approves the disaster recovery and implementation plans. Resiliency and Backup Services Resiliency and backup services form a key part of disaster recovery, and you should review these services to make sure they meet the criteria for your disaster recovery plan. Cisco defines network resiliency as the ability to recover from any network failure or issue whether it is related to a disaster, link, hardware, design, or network services. A high availability network design is often the foundation for disaster recovery and can be sufficient to handle some minor or local disasters. Key tasks for resiliency planning and backup services include the following: • Assess the resiliency of your network, identify gaps and risks. • Review your current backup services. • Implement network resiliency and backup services. Assess Network Resiliency We recommend you assess the resiliency of your network keeping in mind the following three levels of availability: reliable networks, high−availability networks, and nonstop network environments. Doing so helps prioritize risks, set requirements for higher levels of availability, and identify the mission−critical elements of your network. Cisco − Disaster Recovery: Best Practices White Paper Be sure to evaluate the following areas of your network: • Network links ♦ Carrier diversity ♦ Local loop diversity ♦ Facilities resiliency ♦ Building wiring resiliency • Hardware resiliency ♦ Power, security and disaster ♦ Redundant hardware ♦ Mean time before replacement (MTTR) ♦ Network path availability • Network design ♦ Layer 2 WAN design ♦ Layer 2 LAN design ♦ Layer 3 IP design • Network services resiliency ♦ DNS resiliency ♦ DHCP resiliency ♦ Other services resiliency Review and Implement Backup Services Your disaster recovery plan should include a backup services strategy, which needs to be consistent throughout the whole organization. For example, Frame Relay services could use ISDN as a backup service. Backup scenarios are important to provide higher availability and access to main sites and/or access to existing parallel disaster recovery sites during a disaster. All system and application backup strategies depend upon network connections. Disaster handling requires communication services, and the impact of a disaster could be greatly limited by having available communication services. The following table shows possible backup services (across the top row) for a primary connection (down the left column). Based on your location, some of the services may not be available, or may only be available with limited bandwidth. An X represents a possible backup services solution; an O represents a limited backup services solution; and a blank box represents an option that is not sufficient as a backup service solution. IP Services PLC (E1, T1, fractional) ISDN Frame Relay IP Services PLC (E1, T1, Frame SDH / Communication ISDN ATM POTS VSAT Microwave fractional) Relay SMDS by Light X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X Cisco − Disaster Recovery: Best Practices White Paper X O X X X X O O O O O O O ATM POTS SDH /SMDS VSAT Communication by Light Microwave X.25 X X X X X X X O X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X O xDSL X X GSM 9.6 kbps X X O X X O X X X O O X X O O X O X X O X O X O X X X X O O X X O O O X X X X O A backup service (marked with an X) should offer 60 percent of the bandwidth requirements of the primary service. The backup service must be compatible, and in some cases additional interfaces for routers, switches, adapters, and protocols are required. Vendor Support Services Having support services from your major vendors in place adds a strong value to disaster recovery planing. For example, specific managed hot standby sites or on−site services with rapid response times can significantly ease disaster recovery. Key questions regarding vendor support include: • Are support contracts in place? • Has the disaster recovery plan been reviewed by the vendors, and are the vendors included in the escalation processes? • Does the vendor have sufficient resources to support the disaster recovery? Most vendors have experience handling disaster situations and can offer additional support. Cisco offers a wide range of Service & Support Solutions ( registered customers only) and can assist with limiting downtime in the case of an unexpected outage. Related Information • Technical Support − Cisco Systems All contents are Copyright © 2006−2007 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Important Notices and Privacy Statement. Updated: Jul 12, 2007 Cisco − Disaster Recovery: Best Practices White Paper Document ID: 15118 Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP) Lecture One IS 4600 Indiana Tech Introduction • Each recovery plan is a custom solution for each organization. • DRP is not a one time event it is an ongoing process. • DRP is not a stand alone function. Disaster • What is a disaster? • How does a disaster differ from a business process interruption? • When should you define the critical processes and key business activities for your organization? Goals • There are three goals of a DRP. • They are related to ensuring: 1. an orderly and rapid recovery 2. organizational stability 3. the safety of personnel and customers Objectives • There are specific objectives that will vary from one organization to another. – However conceptually they all focus on minimizing the adverse effects of one or more of these categories: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. injuries loss of assets decision-making during a disaster legal liability reliance on certain key individuals the probability of occurrence Main Steps 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Determine Your Exposures Develop Reaction Strategies Inventory Key Information Validate Communicate Process • • • • • • • • • • • Obtain Top Management Commitment Establish a Planning Committee High Level Inventory Establish Priorities for Processing and Operations Perform a Risk Assessment Determine Recovery Strategies Perform Data Collection Organize and Document a Written Plan Develop Testing Criteria And Procedures Test The Plan Approve, Distribute And Train The Plan Obtain Top Management Commitment • Top management must support and be involved in the development of the disaster recovery planning process – Why is this the case? – How does top management commitment help? Establish a Planning Committee • DRP is not just an IT function • Input from all departments and functional areas of your organization • This will facilitate support and contribution from across the company High Level Inventory • Functional Activities – Financial, Production Line, HR • Operational Resources – Email, Data Storage • Prioritize – Essential, important and non-essential – Time lines on the impact of each missing operational process Perform a Risk Assessment • Include the entire range of possible adverse events • Identify the potential impact of each threat and likely hood of any given threat’s happening. • This assists in setting priorities Determine Recovery Strategies • Some examples of recovery strategies include: – – – – – – – – – Hot sites Warm sites Cold sites Multiple data centers Reciprocal agreements Multiple computers Service centers Vendor supplied equipment Other options Data Collection • • • • • • • • • • • • • Critical Telephone Numbers Documentation Inventory Equipment Inventory Insurance Policy Inventory Main Computer Hardware Inventory Software Inventory W/ Keys Master Call List Master Vendor List Notification Checklist Off-site Storage Location Inventory Software And Data Files Backup/Retention Schedules Temporary Location Specifications Other Materials And Documentation Organize and Document a Written Plan • Identify all major steps before the writing begins • Identify redundant procedures that only need to be written once. • Develop a road map for developing the procedures • Standardized and Detailed Develop Testing Criteria and Procedures • Determining the feasibility and compatibility of backup facilities and procedures • Identifying areas in the plan that need modification • Providing training to the team managers and team members • Demonstrating the ability of the organization to recover • Providing motivation for maintaining and updating the disaster recovery plan Test the Plan • • • • Checklist tests Simulation tests Parallel tests Full interruption tests Approve, Distribute, and Train the Plan • Confirms Top Management’s Support • Key personnel need a copy of the plan • Insures that each person knows their role incase of an event 1 Each recovery plan is a custom solution for each organization. There are industry accepted best practices but there aren’t any universally right answers to any of the problems we will discuss. This is a critical concept for DRP and by extension this course. DRP is not a one time event it is an ongoing process Your organization should expect to review, update, enhance, and in some cases. replace their DRP on a regular basis. DRP is not a stand alone function It is the part of Business Continuity Planning that addresses catastrophic loss 2 What constitutes a disaster? A sudden, unplanned, and catastrophic event that disables an organization’s ability to perform critical processes. How does a disaster differ from a business process interruption? It differs based on the critical nature of the productivity or process that are disrupted. This might include items such as the manufacture of products and/or processing of information that supports key business activities. When should you define the critical processes and key business activities for your organization? This must be done before a disaster occurs. And what we hope to help you learn in this course is how to make those determinations, and how to develop effective response strategies. 3 an orderly and rapid recovery The more quickly the adverse effects of the disaster are resolved the better organizational stability Customers and employees of any organization need to feel assured that at some point business will return to normal. the safety of personnel and customers Safety should always be central to a recovery effort. In addition to any business concerns this is the moral and ethical approach. 4 injuries As stated before, safety is paramount. loss of assets This is very straight forward. Assets can include tangible and intangible things. Tangible assets are things like physical property. Intangibles are more like reputation or market share. decision-making during a disaster Decisions take time, and during a disaster, time is a luxury you will not have. Also, decisions made under pressure are often not a good as decisions made in a controlled environment. legal liability Contracts and regulatory responsibilities are not automatically suspended because of a disaster. reliance on certain key individuals You can never be certain that your entire staff will be present during a disaster recovery. This is most especially true during the initial hours and days. Having clearly documented procedures reduces this risk. the probability of occurrence During the development of your DRP you will identify ways to make 5 your organization more resilient. 5 Determine your exposures What are your key assets and what threats may impinge on these assets? Develop reaction strategies How can we protect the organization’s assets from the threats. Some strategies will be applied before the event to reduce the risk, and some will applied post event as recovery activates. Inventory key information This includes items such as customer and employee contact information, account numbers, insurance polices, and passwords. Validate You need to verify that your plans will work. This involves testing and corrective updates, if necessary. Communicate The plan should be distributed to the members of the recovery teams before an event, and communicate includes initial training and periodic refresher courses. Care must be given to the sensitive nature of your recovery plans and appropriate safe guards applied. 6 Each item discussed in detail on the following slides. 7 Why is this the case? DRP must be intrusive or things will be missed. How does top management commitment help? For a plan to be effective adequate time and resources must be available. 8 Input from all departments and functional areas of your organization You will need to draw members from the key stakeholders. This will facilitate support and contribution from across the company Keep in mind that DRP is a company wide effort and must include representatives that reflect this. 9 Functional activities Things the employees of your organization do as parts of their jobs. For example: print paychecks, build widgets, and order supplies Operational resources Resources employees use to accomplish their jobs. For example: Send Email and access data storage Prioritize Evaluate each activity and resources to determine if it is Essential, important or non-essential Time lines on the impact of each missing operational process The priority of some items will change over time. For example: printing paychecks will be more critical the day before payday as compared to the day after. 10 Include the entire range of possible adverse events Bare in mind that this class is focused on disasters, but any adverse event including natural, technical, and human threats can interrupt business continuity. Whether or not it is included in the DRP is a factor of how disruptive the event would be. Identify the potential impact of each threat and likely hood of any given threat’s happening. Start with the potential impact, and ask how devastating would this be. For example, a massive flood could be catastrophic. Then ask how often can that event be expected in this area. For example, if your place of business is in a recognized flood plain, then a flood might be expected multiple times a year. Furthermore, relocating to a less flood prone area is a example of minimizing the probability of occurrence discussed earlier. This assists in setting priorities What is happening during risk analysis is a conversion from qualitative measures to quantitative measurements. The an addition product of this process is easier prioritization. 11 Hot sites A fully functional and separately located site. Most applicable to situations where services need restored in minutes. Warm sites A separately located site with pre-deployed equipment . Most applicable to situations where services need restored within hours Cold sites A separately located site that may have some equipment present but it is not installed. Most applicable to situations where services need restored in days. Multiple data centers When an organization is large enough to have multiple locations. It is similar to a hot site. This can provide at or near real time cut over. Reciprocal agreements An agreement between two different organizations where space and some resources will be made available by one group if the other has an disaster. Multiple computers This is exactly what is sounds like. Have more than one computer allocated to support critical business procedures. Service centers 12 Third party contracts for IT support services. Some consist of regional data centers others will transport temporary equipment to your DR site. Vendor supplied equipment Maintaining sufficient credit with vendors to supply sufficient new equipment to your DR site. Other options In the real world you are only limited to your creativity and resources 12 These are self-explanatory examples of the types of data to be collected. You should keep in mind that Data Backup (e.g. production data copied to tape) would be part of a recovery strategy and is not part of this step. 13 Identify all major steps before the writing begins This of this an hierarchical process where larger items are broken down into their constitute components. Identify redundant procedures that only need to be written once. For example, the base load plan for a PC may only need to be written once then amended for the exceptions found in each department. Develop a road map for developing the procedures As implied above, document development is an iterative process. Each step is broken down from larger to smaller this assist in developing detailed procedures. Standardized and Detailed Standardized format and structure is very important to a well written DRP. During a crisis is not the time for someone to have to figure out how to read any given section of the plan. Also, sufficient detail should be provided so that it is possible, but not required, for less technical personnel to perform tasks. 14 Determining the feasibility and compatibility of backup facilities and procedures During a disaster recovery is not the time to find out that the firmware on the tape drive at your warm site is not compatible with the backup media currently in use. Identifying areas in the plan that need modification Find gaps and overlaps in the planning process so the plan can be improved. Providing training to the team managers and team members Preforming each portion of the plan will ensure an intimate familiarity for key team members. Demonstrating the ability of the organization to recover Building confidence in the plan will improve the odds of a successful recover. Providing motivation for maintaining and updating the disaster recovery plan Knowing that the plan will be tested on a regular basis will encourage changes in the organization’s operations to be included in the DRP. 15 Checklist tests Frequency: Monthly For example, periodically calling each of the employees emergency contact number. Simulation tests Frequency: Quarterly For example, perform a full data restore to spare equipment to verify the integrity of the backup and restore procedures. Parallel tests Frequency: Annually For example, shut down a portion of the network (e.g. primary Internet feed) to confirm the backup data feed functions as designed. Full interruption tests Frequency: Three year rotation For example, completely transfer all functionality to your company’s hot site. 16 Confirms Top Management’s Support During a disaster is not the time to find out that the company’s owner or CEO does not agree with the plans, procedures, or priorities in the DRP. Key personnel need a copy of the plan The DRP should be considered a confidential and internal only document. Most personnel should only have access to the portions of the plan in which they will participate. Full copies of the document, with critical passwords and other sensitive information, will exist but they should be closely guarded. Insures that each person knows their role incase of an event The people who will implement the plan deserve to have more than a document. They should have hands on time to thoroughly learn what is their part in the recovery/ 17