Traditionally disaster recovery has been defined simply as the ability to recover from a catastrophic outage of IT systems and services. While it is crucial to have a plan for these events, planning only for hardware and software recovery can still leave an enterprise exposed. Dataedge Disaster Recovery Planning Services emphasize looking at the larger picture to insure that your business can continue to operate, not just your computer systems. It provides for business continuity in that it addresses the risk of productivity from all sources of data so that your business can continue to run after the computers come back up.

Business Process Analysis
The Business Process Analysis phase documents the way a company does its business. We have found that the processes that a business uses in day to day activities are rarely documented and are typically defined only in the combined knowledge of key employees. With this fact in mind, a method is needed that will bring this information together and document it so that they can be reconstructed without the help of the same key employees. After Hurricane Katrina, many businesses failed, not because employees were hurt but because they abandoned their jobs. This caused a loss of knowledge for the day to day operations even with replacement employees.

At Dataedge Solutions, we have found that focusing on the flow of data through each department (legal, accounting, shipping, etc.), offers the best representation of how those processes can be documented and reproduced. The data components are then mapped to the computer systems that implement them. For example, an application may get data from other computers, messaging systems, EDI systems, FTP updates, e-mail processes and Web-based customer interfaces. Understanding this flow of data allows us to design an effective solution for Disaster Recovery.

We also focus on the non-electronic forms of information by documenting how a job is done and where information comes from. Not all information necessary to run your business is stored online nor is it always written down. The loss of a key employee could keep your business from running unless key elements of their knowledge, methods and sources of data are documented.

Disaster Recovery System Planning
The Disaster Recovery System Planning phase evaluates the more traditional elements of hardware and software recovery by creating a detailed plan that implements the recovery process. The Information Technology team manages this process to ensure continuity of operations in the event of a wide variety of disaster scenarios. This plan, which is designed to create stability and reliability for applications, databases, system, networks, telephony, staff, and supporting infrastructure (power, cooling, space), provides the infrastructure so that other business processes can continue.