How do you get started with disaster recovery (DR) outsourcing?

Disaster recovery (DR) outsourcing services are available from many vendors in different locations, and each has a particular rate schedule. Some of the major participants in this market are IBM Corp. and SunGard, however, there are other local resources you can look into as well.

In order to determine which disaster recovery outsourcing service is right for your company, look at request for information (RFI)/request for proposal (RFP) questions. Some important questions to ask include the following:

• What type of equipment is available for recovery?
• What support is provided at the facility?
• What is their policy about exercises?

Keep in mind that some vendors require much advance notice to plan for an exercise. Also, tour their DR facility and see if the location is somewhere you would trust to perform your recovery. And check the transportation to the location and ensure that if you use third parties for data storage, access is available 24/7.

Pricing for disaster recovery outsourcing will mainly depend on the type of service you require. To ensure peace of mind, make sure you compare at least three vendors and know exactly what type of DR services you require. Be careful not to underestimate or overestimate your needs.

For more on disaster recovery outsourcing:

• Read our disaster recovery planning and operations tutorial to learn how to choose a DR facility and if outsourcing is right for your company.
• Determine if cloud DR services are secure in this expert response.
• Check out our chart that lists A sampling of disaster recovery/business continuity providers.
• And read about outsourcing disaster recovery services for SMBs in this article.