IT Disaster Recovery Preparedness Benchmark
Disaster Recovery (and Business Continuity) were sometimes an afterthought even as recently as a few years ago. When I started out in IT the attitude was usually similar to that of an ostrich burying its head in the sand. Thankfully times have clearly moved on.
Yesterday a press-release was brought to my attention that I'd like to share. It concerns a new research advisory council that has been created to help provide IT professionals (and, by extension, businesses) with a reflective measure of how prepared they are to handle Disaster Recovery situations. The DRP Council, as it's known, have launched an online survey that takes just a few minutes to complete:
As recent cyber-attacks and natural disaster events have shown, the need for IT disaster recovery preparedness has never been greater. However, research indicates that less than half of all companies have a disaster recovery plan in place, and even fewer have actually tested their plans to see if they will work as expected.
This need to uncover the value of disaster recovery planning and testing, as well as gain a better understanding of DR best practices to make preparedness more cost-effective and efficient was the driving force behind a recently created Disaster Recovery Preparedness (DRP) Council. Formed by IT business, government and academic leaders to address these issues, its mission is to increase DR Preparedness awareness, and improve DR practices.
The DRP Council has developed an online Disaster Recovery Preparedness Benchmark (DRPB) Survey. The survey is designed to give business continuity, disaster recovery, compliance audit and risk management professionals a measure of their own preparedness in recovering critical IT systems running in virtual environments.
Founding members of the DRP Council include:
- Steve Kahan, Council Chairman, PHD Virtual
- Dave Simpson, Sr. Analyst, 451 Group
- Bilal Hashmi, Sr. Systems Engineer, Verizon
- Michael Sink, Director Data Center Technologies, University of South Florida
- Steve Lambropoulos, University of South Florida
- Darren Hirons, Principal Systems Engineer, UK Health & Social Information Centre
- Trystan Trenberth, CEO and Managing Director, Trenberth LTD
- Riaan Hamman, CTO, Puleng Technologies
- Carlos Escapa, Council Research Director , PHD Virtual
- Anita DuBose, Council Research Director, PHD Virtual
“Users can now benchmark their own disaster recovery preparedness and find out real answers on how they would be able to get their IT systems up and running within a realistic time-frame to meet stringent business requirements,” said Steve Kahan, Chairman of the DRP Council. “Just 10 minutes of their time will provide them with some immediate feedback and a benchmark score that rates your DR preparedness with other companies that have participated.”
“I am unsure if our current best practices are the best or most efficient ways to deliver our SLA,” said Darren Hirons, Principal Systems Engineer, UK Health & Social Information Centre. “Learning about best practices through the Disaster Recovery Preparedness Benchmark could help us learn new ways to shorten the SLAs and deliver better service to our businesses.”
The DRPB survey provides a benchmarking score from 0-100 that measures the implementation of IT disaster recovery best practices. DRPB benchmarking scores parallel the grading system familiar to most students in North America whereby a score of 90-100 is an “A” or superior grade; 80-89 is a “B” or above average grade; 70-79 is a “C” or average grade and 60-69 is a “D” or unsatisfactory grade. Below 60, rates as an “F”, or failing grade.
Supporting Resources
Disaster recovery Preparedness Council: http://drbenchmark.org/about-us/our-council/
Disaster Recovery Benchmark Test: http://drbenchmark.org/benchmark-survey/survey-overview/
About the Disaster Recovery Preparedness Council
The DRPC is an independent research group engaged in IT disaster recovery management, research, and benchmarking in order to deliver practical guidance for how to improve Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery. www.drbenchmark.org
As a consultant, I don't have anything but lab environments of my own that I can base responses on. If you manage a production environment though, I'd urge you to take a few minutes to complete the survey.
Cheers!