Implementing Backup and Recovery: The Readiness Guide for the Enterprise

Declaration of a Disaster

What does your company call a disaster? Clearly define the levels of disasters and what warrants the declaration of a disaster. Also take into consideration a definition of business interruptions and steps to take in the event the business interruption changes into a disaster. We consider a business interruption as any event, whether planned or unplanned, that disrupts the normal course of business operations at one of your locations, which if not addressed within a predetermined amount of time may turn into a disaster.

Operations, IT management, or facilities may declare a disaster and invoke the recovery process, depending on the answers to the following questions:

• Are you experiencing flash floods in your area?

• Has this affected any of the critical data centers?

• Are your facilities experiencing water problems, such as flood, broken pipe, and so on?

• As a result, are any of the critical data centers at risk? Facility at risk?

• Has a fire broken out in the building?

• Have you experienced a power failure?

• Do you see or smell smoke in the server room?

• Has natural disaster damage to the building limited normal access?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, immediately contact the primary on the call tree. If contact fails, contact the secondary and page the primary.

Continue this process with the tertiary contact until you have reached someone on the declaration call tree.

Disaster Declaration Process

Define your organization's process for declaring a disaster, such as responsible parties, levels of criticality, and so forth. What would warrant a disaster? What would you consider a business interruption? When does a business interruption shift into a disaster? Following are some sample questions you might want to consider as a guide to help you determine if a declaration is necessary and what level of severity it would be.