When developing a disaster recovery plan for my organization with varying technical skills, limited budget but medium-scale critical operations, it is important to balance between cost-effectiveness and disruption of services.
Risk Analysis and Assessment: It is the first thing I should do to analyze and identify the external risks such as disasters, facility risks such as power outage, data system risks such as data backup failure, departmental risks, and desk-level risks. Then, calculating the likelihood, impact, and restoration time along with associated risks can assist me in prioritizing and preparing necessary procedures in my recovery procedures.
Anticipated Effects: The second procedure is the identifying the anticipated effects of the disasters along with the cost of downtime and lists of anticipated affected entities. It is the process of matching potential risks and anticipated effects on the system.
Evaluation of Disaster Recovery Procedures: After analyzing the risks and anticipated effects, it is time to evaluate the existing disaster recovery procedures and mechanism such as spare server, multiple power supply, and backup of critical data. When evaluating them, it is necessary to balance between cost and impact of those systems.
Organizational Considerations: Since the organization has limited budget, sometimes, it is not possible to choose multiple sources of power supply to the whole system, but it must ensure enough power supply for the critical data system in those times of disaster. Instead of backing up the full data, backing only critical data and replicating them can be an effective in the case of downtime while cutting some budget.
Additionally, an organization with the people with varying technical skills can be sometimes challenging to respond timely in case of an emergency. So, it is necessary to have a list of focal point of contacts from each department that are essential in responding a disaster. Besides, providing training on cybersecurity and data security and mock drill can prepare them for a potential disaster.