IT DR Plan Content: Purpose, Scope and Assumption

Overview

This sample IT DR Plan serves as a guide to assist the reader in developing a DR Plan.

The Organization DR Coordinator should modify the format and information to meet the organization’s policy and standards, and comply with any regulatory requirements.

• Provide a general description of IT functions.
• Indicate the operating environment, physical location, the general location of users, and partnerships with external organizations/systems.
• Include information regarding any other technical considerations that are important for recovery purposes, such as backup procedures, information security.

Purpose

This {IT organization name} DR Plan establishes procedures to recover all critical IT services to support the business continuity plan as identified in the Business Impact Analysis following a major disruption.

This DR Plan is developed based on the following objectives:

• Maximize the effectiveness of DR operations through established procedures that consist of the following phases:
  • Notification/Damage Assessment Phase
  • Activation Phase
  • Mobilization Phase
  • Recovery Phase
  • Return to Normal Phase
• Maintain consistency, reliability and workability of the plan through a defined test strategy and procedures
• Establish comprehensive awareness and training strategy and procedures to ensure IT staff is familiar with the plan

Scope of the Plan

The scope of this DR Plan describes procedures to recover all critical services following a major disaster that inhibits {IT organization name} to continue providing services.

The plan design is based on the following disaster scenarios:

Scenario 1

• The {Organization name}’s IT facility in {City, Country}, is inaccessible; therefore, {IT organization name} is unable to continue processing from this location

Scenario 2

• Any severe incident causing infrastructure supporting IT and/or equipment failure impact {IT organization name} ability to recover and continue operations from its original location

Assumptions

The following assumptions are considered when developing the DR Plan:

• The {IT organization name} is inoperable and cannot be recovered from its original location within {XX} hours. (This requirement has to be agreed within the organization. The duration specified must match the defined IT recovery capability. For instance, if the IT recovery capability is 24 hours, this requirement should be specified longer than 24 hours.)
• A valid contract exists that designates that the site in {City, Country}, as the {Organization name}’s alternate operating facility
• {Organization name} will use the {alternate site} building and information technology resources to recover {IT organization name} functionality during an emergency situation that prevents access to the {original facility}.
• The designated computer system at the {alternate site} has been configured to begin processing {system name} information.
• The {alternate site} will be used to continue {system name} recovery and processing throughout the period of disruption, until the return to normal operations.
• Current backups of the application software and data are intact and available at the {offsite storage facility}
• The equipment and network are available with adequate capacities at the alternate site in {City, State}
• Service agreements are established and maintained detailing hardware, software, and communications providers to support the emergency system recovery

The {IT organization name} DR Plan does not apply to the following situations:

• Major single incident impacting both the original location and the alternate backup location
• Total people loss resulting in {IT organization name}’s inability to perform its recovery operations
• Operating System bugs, software problem, and/or virus that would impact both production and the backup
• Any additional constraints should be added to this