Tactical Policies for Disaster Recovery

Taking the time to identify and publish the many assumptions on which your DR plan is based is not only a key component for plan developers and stakeholders, but is also critical to your ability to survive the post disaster review.

Assumptions are the tactical policies of the DR Plan. These policies can have a critical impact on the plan itself, on the budget for the plan, and even the ability to actually execute the plan. They serve not only to define the scope and constraints of the plan, but more importantly, they set accurate expectations of all the stake holders. Everyone has 20/20 hindsight after a disaster as business units maintain (often accurately) they were unaware of key assumptions that affected their subsequent operational viability.

The assumptions made in planning disaster recovery often include the extent of the disaster, the survival of transportation infrastructure, the survival and subsequent availability of recovery staff as well as many others that will directly impact your plan and your DR architecture. By identifying and publishing these assumptions up front, senior management can review and signoff on the impact on the plan and the budget as a result of the stated assumptions. The assumptions identified and published become the Tactical Policies that provide the foundation philosophy for DR planning.

Transportation infrastructure survival, communications infrastructure survival, survival of the disaster site itself in a wider geographic disaster, are additional assumptions to think about. What about the business volumes after a disaster? .Will business volumes remain static, will they suddenly increase or decrease, can throughput rates change?

We have discussed only a few of many assumptions that are made, sometimes unknowingly, in development of the DR plan. Identifying and including these assumptions as Tactical Policies is key. These policies need to be exposed to the harsh daylight of senior management review before budgeting for or developing your DR plan objectives. It is critical not only to the ability of your organization to survive a disaster, but also to your own ability to survive the post disaster review; assuming you survived the disaster

-Dick Benton, GlassHouse Principal Consultant

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