A DRP contains the steps to restore an IT infrastructure to a point where an organization can continue operations. If a disaster occurs that causes damage and interrupts your business functions, it is important to return to productive activities as soon as possible. If your organization can’t carry out its main business functions, it cannot fulfill its purpose. A solid disaster recovery plan carefully identifies each component of your IT infrastructure that is critical to your primary business functions. Then, the plan states the steps you can take to replace damaged or destroyed components.

There are several options available for serious disasters that damage or destroy major IT infrastructure components (FIGURE 8-8). These are a few of the most common options, starting with the most expensive option with the shortest cutover time:

• Hot site—A complete copy of an environment at a remote site. Hot sites are kept as current as possible with replicated data, so switching from the original environment to the alternate environment can occur with a minimum of downtime.

• Warm site—A complete copy of an environment at a remote site. Warm sites are updated only periodically—normally daily or even weekly. When a disaster occurs, there is a short delay while a switchover team prepares the warm site with the latest data updates.

• Cold site—A site that may have hardware in place, but it will not likely be set up or configured. Cold sites take more time to bring into operation because of the extensive amount of configuration work required for hardware and software.

• Service level agreement (SLA)—A contract with a vendor that guarantees replacement hardware or software within a specific amount of time.

• Cooperative agreement—An agreement between two or more organizations to help one another in case a disaster hits one of the parties. The organization that is not affected by the disaster agrees to allow the other organization to use part of its own IT infrastructure capacity to conduct minimal business operations. There is usually a specified time limit that allows the organization that suffered damage time to rebuild its IT infrastructure.

Regardless of which option best suits your organization, the purpose of a disaster recovery plan is to repair or replace damaged IT infrastructure components as quickly as possible to allow the business to continue in operation.

There is a lot of confusion between a DRP and a BCP. The two plans work closely with one another and depend on one another for success. You can summarize the difference between the two plans into two main points:

1. A DRP for IT ensures the IT infrastructure is operational and ready to support primary business functions. A DRP for IT focuses mainly on the IT department.

2. A BCP is an organizational plan. It doesn’t focus only on IT. The BCP ensures the organization can survive any disruption and continue operating. If the disruption is major, the BCP will rely on the DRP to provide an IT infrastructure the organization can use.

To summarize, a comprehensive BCP will take effect any time there is a disruption to business functions. An example would be a power outage or a water main break that interrupts water flow to your main office. A DRP takes effect when an event causes a major disruption. A major disruption is one where you must intervene and take some action to restore a functional IT infrastructure. A fire or tornado that damages your datacenter would be an example of a disaster.

Any time there is data loss, at least part of a previous backup will need to be restored. In most cases, this means using a restore utility to extract some, or all, of the files and folders you backed up during the most recent backup operation. The restore procedure is a technical operation. Your DRP and BCP contain the steps you follow to get your organization back up and running. While the restore procedure is an important part of a successful recovery, it is only one part of a solid plan.