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• Conducting a tabletop exercise for disaster recovery testing

  Paul Kirvan discusses whether a tabletop exercise is sufficient for disaster recovery testing and issues that tabletop exercises should address. Continue Reading

• Call center disaster recovery planning best practices

  Independent disaster recovery expert Paul Kirvan offers some best practices for call center disaster recovery planning in this Expert Answer. Continue Reading

• Preparing for an audit using ISO 22301

  Paul Kirvan recommends using ISO 22301 for a baseline audit of your business continuity program in this tip. Continue Reading

• Business continuity and disaster recovery policy statement templates

  Paul Kirvan explains why you need a program for developing a business continuity (BC) and disaster recovery policy in this tip. Continue Reading

• Fire suppression system inspection and testing best practices

  Independent disaster recovery consultant Paul Kirvan discusses fire sprinkler system inspection and testing best practices in this Expert Answer. Continue Reading

• 10 mistakes to avoid in your disaster recovery planning process

  Don't make your DR planning process harder than it is by trying to do too much or cutting corners. Careful planning is key to a successful recovery.Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery plan testing: Will your plan work?

  DR has become tougher due to ever-changing virtual environments. Ensure your disaster recovery plan testing runs smoothly with DR monitoring tools.Continue Reading

• Break mirrors as part of the disaster recovery testing process

  Independent DR expert Jon Toigo discusses the importance of breaking your mirroring scheme as a part of your disaster recovery testing process.Continue Reading

• Creating disaster recovery testing scenarios

  This collection of articles from independent DR expert Paul Kirvan offers advice on creating disaster recovery testing scenarios.Continue Reading

• Developing business scenarios for BC/DR exercise planning

  Begin developing effective business scenarios in your BC/DR exercise planning by first understanding your own business and how it works.Continue Reading

• The importance of a disaster recovery test

  Jon Toigo discusses the importance of a disaster recovery test for DR planning and change management in this Expert Answer.Continue Reading

• Preparing natural-disaster scenarios for BC/DR exercise planning

  Incorporate natural disasters such as tornadoes and hurricanes into your BC/DR exercise planning by focusing on events outside your control.Continue Reading

• Building staff-related disaster scenarios for BC/DR exercise planning

  Develop effective staff-related disaster scenarios in your BC/DR exercise planning by focusing on the sudden loss of more than one key person.Continue Reading

• Developing technology scenarios for BC/DR exercise planning

  The most effective BC/DR exercise plans begin with choosing disaster scenarios for technology issues, particularly IT-focused ones.Continue Reading

• Choosing an operational scenario for BC/DR exercise planning

  Effective BC/DR exercise planning begins with developing disaster scenarios for operational situations by focusing on process-related situations.Continue Reading

• Building an incident response plan

  Learn how incident response plans offer a starting point for responding to a situation and then deciding how to proceed in this tip from Paul Kirvan.Continue Reading

• Defining, reviewing and updating your organization's BC/DR policy

  Independent disaster recovery expert Paul Kirvan outlines what you need to know about keeping your BC/DR policy up to date.Continue Reading

• The importance of cloud recovery testing

  Brien Posey explains why it is extremely important to perform cloud recovery testing that simulates a real recovery following a catastrophe.Continue Reading

• Tips on setting up a DR/BC maintenance program

  A disaster recovery/business continuity maintenance program ensures that plans and other documentation are accurate and up to date.Continue Reading

• emergency management plan

  An emergency management plan should include measures that provide for the safety of personnel and, if possible, property and facilities.Continue Reading

• What must happen before activating a DR plan

  Find out what must happen before a DR plan is activated in this Expert Response from Paul Kirvan.Continue Reading

• Tips for protecting hard-copy records

  Find out how to protect hard-copy records and what your business continuity/disaster recovery plan for vital documents should include.Continue Reading

• Legal issues for business disaster recovery plans

  This tip will examine some of the legal issues you should consider in your business disaster recovery plan.Continue Reading

• Tips for building a work area recovery center

  Learn how to determine if your business needs a work area recovery center and check out some options for building short-term and long-term solutions.Continue Reading

• Emergency notification system comparison and purchasing tips

  We’ll show you an emergency notification system comparison and share some tips on purchasing the right program for your organization.Continue Reading

• Business impact analysis questionnaire template

  Download our free business impact analysis questionnaire template we've created to help you jumpstart your BIA process.Continue Reading

• How CERT RMM can benefit BC plans, resilience management strategies

  With so many approaches to risk management and resilience management, it’s difficult to decide which approach and/or strategy to take. This tip examines how the use of a Resilience Management Model (RMM)—such as CERT RMM—can help you build a ...Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery needs a media response plan

  Paul Kirvan of the Business Continuity Institute’s U.S. chapter talks about the importance of including a media response plan in a company’s disaster recovery planning process.Continue Reading

• Getting management buy-in for your disaster recovery policy

  Learn how to sell your disaster recovery policy to management in this podcast with Paul Kirvan of the Business Continuity Institute.Continue Reading

• Call center disaster recovery plan checklists

  Learn about call center disaster recovery planning best practices, and read our call center checklists so you know what to include in your call center DR plan.Continue Reading

• Network disaster recovery plan basics

  A good set of network documentation can prove to be valuable in the event of a disaster. Learn about what to document and make part of your network DR plan.Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery security: The importance of addressing data security issues in DR plans

  Data security issues have a constant presence in the IT industry and should be addressed in DR plans. It's not enough for storage managers to only cover basic security measures.Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery planning for your help desk: A help desk template

  The help desk is a vital part of IT operations, but it's often not included in disaster recovery plans. Download our help desk template for DR planning.Continue Reading

• Top 10 IT disaster recovery tips of 2010

  To help alleviate the problems that often arise with disaster recovery (DR) planning and testing, we've compiled our top 10 DR tips from 2010. Learn about cloud disaster recovery, DR maturity levels and more.Continue Reading

• Developing an emergency evacuation planning strategy for your business continuity program

  It's critical to have a reliable and safe evacuation plan included in your DR/BC plan. Use these tables to construct one.Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery and business continuity planning tools: A guide to selecting the best product

  Choosing DR/BC planning software for your DR plan can be overwhelming. Use this guide to select the best product.Continue Reading

• Data replication strategies: Tips on choosing the right data replication tool

  Learn how to choose the best data replication strategy in our collection of tips on data replication solutions.Continue Reading

• Data center consolidation best practices for disaster recovery planners

  Many organizations large and small are finding a need to consolidate their data. Follow these best practices for your data center consolidation.Continue Reading

• Hurricane disaster recovery planning for data centers

  This column focuses on hurricane DR planning for the data center. Learn how to keep your data center safe and communicate effectively with your employees during a hurricane.Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery and business continuity testing best practices

  We've compiled our top seven tips and articles on BC and DR testing to help you design the best BC and DR plans and tests for your company.Continue Reading

• Business continuity planning methodology quiz

  Test your knowledge of business continuity with our business continuity planning methodology quiz.Continue Reading

• Emergency management planning: What business continuity professionals need to know

  Learn about what goes into emergency management planning including activities, standards and best practices.Continue Reading

• A free disaster recovery template for conducting a physical assessment of your DR facilities

  Download our free disaster recovery template to learn how to conduct a physical assessment of your disaster recovery facilities.Continue Reading

• Fire suppression systems and your data center disaster recovery plan

  Fire suppression systems are important to have in case of a fire. Learn about the pros and cons of the most popular fire suppression systems in this tip.Continue Reading

• A disaster recovery planning guide for beginners

  In this disaster recovery planning guide, we've got the best tips to get you started with your DR plan.Continue Reading

• Virtual machine replication best practices

  In part two of our guide on virtualization and disaster recovery, learn about virtual machine replication best practices.Continue Reading

• Emergency notification systems in business disaster recovery planning

  In this tip, learn about different emergency notification system options for your DR plan.Continue Reading

• Top five free disaster recovery plan templates

  Check out our compilation of the top five free disaster recovery (DR) plan templates. Download our free templates and then read our DR plan template guides.Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery plan testing primer: Test to fail

  Disaster recovery testing is highly valued among standards and DR/BC organizations, but these tests are only effective if you perform them correctly.Continue Reading

• Emergency power systems in data center disaster recovery planning

  Learn how to choose the best emergency power system for your data center disaster recovery plan.Continue Reading

• How do IT disaster recovery plans for an earthquake disaster differ from preparing for other disaste

  Steven Ross explains how DR planning for earthquakes differs from preparing for other disasters in this expert response.Continue Reading

• Five steps to a business impact analysis in disaster recovery planning: BIA 101

  Follow these five steps for a better business impact analysis in your disaster recovery plan.Continue Reading

• A guide to planning and controlling your disaster recovery budget

  In this guide on DR planning, learn how to plan your budget, who should be involved, and then download our free IT DR planning budget template.Continue Reading

• A disaster recovery budget template: A free download and guide

  Read our step-by-step disaster recovery budget process guide, and then download our free disaster recovery budget template.Continue Reading

• IT disaster recovery (DR) planning: A guide on developing and refining your DR plan

  Learn everything you need to know about IT disaster recovery (DR) planning, and how to develop and refine your DR plan, in our free guide.Continue Reading

• Local area network disaster recovery tutorial: Redundant power systems and planning key for LAN DR

  Avoid or mitigate common local area network (LAN) disasters by identifying likely failure points, building redundant systems, and stocking replacement equipment. Here's what you need in a LAN disaster recovery plan.Continue Reading

• VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager disaster recovery best practices

  In this tutorial on SRM disaster recovery best practices, learn what you need in place to use SRM, how to test and execute your DR plans and if SRM is a good fit for your DR strategy.Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery costs: Making testing and planning cost-effective

  DR can often seem daunting to many storage administrators because of its cost. Here are nine ways you can get more cost-effective disaster recovery.Continue Reading

• Five key business continuity technologies to support BC planning in 2010

  Read about the five most important technologies you should have in your data storage environment to help with BC/DR planning in 2010.Continue Reading

• Business risk assessments in IT disaster recovery planning

  Business risk assessments are an important factor in IT disaster recovery (DR) planning. Learn how they can help organizations identify and reduce potential threats, and ensure business continuity (BC).Continue Reading

• What are the hidden threats, if any, in a disaster recovery (DR)/business continuity (BC) plan?

  Harvey Betan explains the hidden threats organizations may encounter in their DR and BC plans in this ask the expert response.Continue Reading

• The importance of incident response plans in disaster recovery

  Incident response plans are essential in DR and BC because they give added protection to sensitive company data. But many companies do not have one.Continue Reading

• What is a business impact analysis (BIA) and how can it benefit my disaster recovery (DR) plan?

  Harvey Betan explains what a business impact analysis is and how it can benefit disaster recovery plans in this ATE.Continue Reading

• Acquiring key personnel to maintain and update your disaster recovery plan

  Your organization must have the right group of people who will work together to choose the right tools to properly maintain and update your DR plan.Continue Reading

• Creating a pandemic response for your disaster recovery plan

  As more and more people are affected by the H1N1 flu, companies need to include a pandemic response into their DR plans.Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery plan basics: Updating and reviewing DR plans

  Each organization must decide when it is right to review and update their disaster recovery (DR) plan, but how do you know when it's right for your company?Continue Reading

• What's the difference between a disaster recovery plan and a business continuity plan?

  Kevin Beaver describes the difference between disaster recovery and business continuity planning in this ask the expert response.Continue Reading

• Easy ways for SMBs to improve their disaster recovery and pandemic plans

  It's important not to fall behind on DR and pandemic planning, or your company may be at risk for unnecessary disasters.Continue Reading

• Is your disaster recovery (DR) plan out of date?

  Although many organizations initially implement DR plans, many neglect to update critical information to keep them running smoothly.Continue Reading

• The importance of workforce continuity in a disaster recovery plan

  Strong workforce continuity is important to have in a disaster recovery (DR) plan. Companies must prepare employees for disasters in order for a DR plan to run smoothly.Continue Reading

• Twelve tips for business continuity management in a recession

  Follow these 12 tips for the most successful business continuity management during a recession.Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery planning fundamentals: DR testing basics

  A disaster recovery plan is useless unless your company goes through the right steps to test it.Continue Reading

• How often should I conduct a disaster recovery (DR) test?

  Kevin Beaver discusses how often companies should conduct disaster recover tests in this Ask the Expert responseContinue Reading

• Disaster recovery strategies: Eight tips for better DR planning

  Achieving more reliable disaster recovery is still a challenge for most organizations. Learn eight tips for better DR planning in this tip.Continue Reading

• Monitoring and managing recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs)

  Jeff Boles talks about how to monitor and manage recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) in this ask the expert response.Continue Reading

• Recovery time objective and recovery point objective in disaster recovery planning

  Learn about the difference between recovery time objective and recovery point objective in DR planning.Continue Reading

• Change management in disaster recovery and business continuity planning

  Change management is an important process for business continuity and disaster recovery planning for several reasons. Learn about change management best practices and its role in BC/DR planning.Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery team planning: Guidelines on DR roles and training

  With the amount of standards surrounding business continuity (BC) and disaster recovery (DR), the roles personnel play in planning need to be established. Learn guidelines for establishing disaster recovery roles and training.Continue Reading

• Data center emergency power strategies in disaster recovery planning

  Despite all the precautions you can take to provide uninterrupted power to your data center, situations can occur that threaten your center's continued operations. Learn about emergency power strategies in disaster recovery planning.Continue Reading

• IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Disaster Recovery Manager best practices

  Learn about IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) Disaster Recovery Manager and how to set it up to automate disaster recovery and reduce the complexity of media management.Continue Reading

• Risk management for disaster recovery planning

  Disaster recovery (DR) planning is typically driven by risk management. This tip focuses on mitigating some of the risks associated with data and storage.Continue Reading

• Developing a disaster recovery plan for virtual machines: A tutorial

  Learn about the various approaches to facilitating disaster recovery in a virtual machine environment, such as VMware Site Recovery Manager and backup software packages.Continue Reading

• Using a tabletop exercise for disaster recovery planning

  A tabletop disaster recovery (DR) exercise provides a practical check list of procedures to follow during a disaster. Learn about the critical procedures and planning documents needed to ensure every disaster scenario has been covered in your ...Continue Reading

• Including employees in your disaster recovery plan

  To really ensure business continuity, organizations need to protect and support employees while continuing to manage the business. This tip examines key issues that are affecting employees in business continuity and disaster recovery situations.Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery planning for both internal threats and external threats

  Both internal threats and external threats can wreak havoc to even the best disaster recovery plan. Read important tips about why your disaster recovery plan needs to go deeper than just a business impact analysis.Continue Reading

• Using business continuity templates for disaster recovery

  Formulating business continuity (BC) and disaster recovery (DR) plans requires a significant amount of time and effort. This tip explores how document templates can guide you through the disaster recovery planning process by providing ready-made ...Continue Reading

• Top disaster recovery tips for protecting your VoIP systems

  Voice over IP (VoIP) technology is the principal technology for supporting converged or unified communications. This tip discusses how converging voice and data in an all-IP environment gives businesses cost-effective and flexible solutions that ...Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery planning for mobile phone users

  Any disaster recovery plan that includes cell phone support must restore text messaging capabilities as well as email to text and text to email linking mechanisms. This tip discusses best practices for including mobile phones in your disaster ...Continue Reading

• Top reasons why disaster recovery tests fail

  Too many disaster recovery (DR) plans end up being a documentation exercise and never rise above the day-to-day priorities of the business. This tip explores the top reasons why disaster recovery tests fail and how you can prevent these problems.Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery planning strategies for email

  Email has become a mission-critical application. Loss of email access can result in lost revenue opportunities, missed contractual obligations and reduced employee productivity. This tip discusses best practices for ensuring email continuity.Continue Reading

• How to create a Windows disaster recovery plan

  When disaster strikes, or site outages occur, there's absolutely no substitute for a carefully crafted, well-orchestrated and thoroughly tested disaster recovery (DR) or business continuity plan. The following list is a helpful reminder of the key ...Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery testing FAQ

  Pierre Dorion, data center practice director at Long View Systems Inc., discusses the importance of testing in a disaster recovery (DR) plan and best practices for ensuring the effectiveness of a test.Continue Reading

• How to conduct a disaster recovery test

  This tip provides an overview of the benefits of disaster recovery testing and outlines important steps you need to consider.Continue Reading

• Tools to test your DR plan

  Periodically testing a disaster recovery (DR) plan is essential, but it can be a time-consuming and expensive task. New tools that check DR configurations and constantly monitor your site's readiness to recover from a disaster can cut costs and ...Continue Reading