Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Training

Setting goals for the BCMS

• Determining organizational risk appetite
• Defining the operational environment

Determining the needs of interested parties

• Identifying stakeholders
• Analyzing stakeholder needs
• Mapping stakeholder relationships

Identifying mission-critical continuity needs

• Evaluating which functions are critical
• Setting priorities based on time horizons
• Prioritizing processes and applications

Performing Business Impact Analysis (BIA)

• Identifying threats
• Assessing risks to the enterprise
• Identifying business-critical activities
• Prioritizing infrastructure requirements

Characterizing risks

• Defining and identifying the sources of risk
• Choosing a risk assessment method
• Communicating risks across the organization

Developing appropriate responses

• Matching the response to the risk
• Taking preventive action
• Ensuring appropriate contingencies are in place

Creating the incident response plan

• Capturing the planning output
• Creating incident response team charters
• Defining roles and responsibilities
• Responding to incident scenarios
• Information directories and equipment inventories

Directing the incident response team

• Setting up the command center
• Planning and conducting communications
• Connecting with emergency services
• Team actions following an incident

Establishing a standby site

• Site choices: configuration and acquisition
• Choosing suppliers: in-house vs. third-party
• Specifying equipment

Selecting backup and restore strategies

• Matching strategy to operational constraints
• Meeting the organization's storage requirements for vital records

Restoring communications and recovering users

• Determining vital users with the BIA
• Rerouting voice, mail, goods delivery
• Eliminating single points of failure
• Connecting end users
• Meeting varied user-recovery needs

Rehearsing business continuity arrangements

• Testing plans with a step-by-step process
• Developing test scenarios and using test results effectively
• Considering the impact of testing on the organization

Maintaining and improving the BCMS

• Applying change control: why and how
• Ensuring normal developments are accounted for
• Leveraging test results to improve organizational practices
• Managing organizational change