No one knows when a natural catastrophe will strike, so it's essential to have a disaster recovery plan in place. This plan will help you get back up and running as quickly as possible after a disaster.
Many small to mid-size firms don't have a disaster recovery plan, or if they do, it's often not up to date. It can be a costly mistake, as downtime can seriously impact your business.
A regular monitoring and testing schedule is essential to ensure that your disaster recovery plan is effective. IT consulting firms will help clients create and test their disaster recovery plans.
So what are the critical stages of testing that you need to be aware of?
Stages of Testing a Disaster Recovery Plan
Decide on Your Testing Schedule
How often you will test your disaster recovery plan is based on several factors, such as the size of your business, the criticality of your data, and the nature of your business.
Your company is implementing a new IT solution that expands the company's disaster recovery test frequency. Each time a change in the infrastructure or process is planned, the disaster recovery plan should be updated and tested. Your employees must be familiar with the plan and understand its role.
Set Clear Goals and Objectives for the Test
Your business's path will be determined mainly by the goals and objectives you set for your disaster recovery plan during a disaster. Have a look at your business continuity plan and make sure your disaster recovery goals are aligned with it.
Your objectives should be realistic, but they should also be measurable to track your progress. Identify the elements of your disaster recovery service plan that you want to test and make sure you have a way of measuring how successful the test was. There are two types of objectives:
Recovery Time objectives: This is the amount of time you aim to recover from a disaster.
Recovery Point Objective: It is the number of data you are willing to lose during a disaster. It exceeds the business continuity goal.
Select the Test That Fits Your Needs
There are different kinds of tests you can conduct that offer you different levels of assurance. The most common types of tests are:
Table Top Exercise
A tabletop exercise is a meeting where you simulate a disaster. This is a great way to test your plan and see how well your team will respond. The purpose here is to identify any gaps in your plan and fix them. Brainstorming and problem-solving are key skills that will be exercised in this type of test.
Walk Through Test
A walkthrough test involves actually walking through your disaster recovery plan. It will help you make sure your plan is realistic and that you have all the necessary resources in place. It usually takes place in a situation like a hurricane or a flood where you can't test your recovery plan.
Simulation Test
A simulation test is the most comprehensive type of test. It involves simulating a disaster and seeing how your business responds. A mock disaster is set up, and your team is put to the test. It is the most expensive type of test, but it's also the most effective.
Parallel Test
A parallel test is a way of testing your disaster recovery plan without actually disrupting your business. This type of test is frequently used to test your disaster recovery infrastructure. You can set up a duplicate environment and test your plan in a controlled setting.
Cutover Test
A cutover test analyse your plan when you actually want to switch over to your disaster recovery site. It is often used when you have a disaster recovery site that is not up to date. For example, you can test your plan by shutting down your primary site and seeing how your site responds.
These are a few of the types of tests you can conduct. Know everything about disaster recovery plans if you want to ensure that your business can survive any unforeseen incident.
Decide the Criteria of the Test
Not all tests are created equal. You need to determine what you want to test and how you will measure the test's success. You can choose your test's scope, time frame, and resources.
It's crucial to be realistic when setting your criteria. You don't want to set the bar too high and make it impossible to pass the test. Determine what you need to do to pass the test and ensure your team knows these requirements. Identify any dependencies your test has on other systems and make sure they are available when you need them.
Run the Test and Document the Results
Once you have decided on your test criteria, it's time to run the test. Ensure you have everything you need in a place like backup as a service and that your team is aware of the test. The objective is to make the test as realistic as possible. Document the test results and make sure to identify any problems that arose.
The best way to learn from your tests is to analyze the results and change your plan. The more disaster tests you perform, the better your plan will become.
In Conclusion
Testing your disaster recovery plan is essential to make sure it works. By using the different types of tests, you can find out what works and what doesn't. Business continuity is key to recovering from a disaster, so you must have a plan that executes properly. An IT consulting firm can help you create a disaster recovery plan that fits your needs.
