5 Things to Include in a BDR Plan

As a business owner or operator, you have a lot of daily responsibilities. That includes plenty of short and long-term goals to focus on. One of these is the development of an efficient and effective BDR plan.

What is a BDR plan?

A backup and disaster recovery (BDR) plan is your set of instructions, protocols, and procedures for protecting employees, your organization infrastructure, critical data, and other essential components from a disaster, as well as recovering from a disaster in order to continue business operations and mitigate losses.

Disasters come in many shapes and sizes — natural disasters such as fires or floods, malware and viruses, hardware failures, or simple employee negligence. These can all cause major disruptions in a business. Having a BDR plan in place is vitally important because nearly 60% of businesses that do suffer a data loss will shut down within 6 months if they don’t have a disaster recovery plan in place and aren’t able to restore their data.

Things to include in a BDR plan

Developing your BDR plan will take time, as it must focus on several different areas of your business. It must also account for different types of disasters. But every plan must contain certain components in order for it to be successful and minimize or eliminate the risk of any losses.

1. Mission Critical Components

Identify the most vital components of your business — everything your business needs to run. That might include system software, databases, and other areas of your business infrastructure, including essential employees.

Identifying and planning for the safety, security, and restoration of these components helps you quickly resume operations during and after a disaster.

2. Data Backup Plans

A mentioned before, your business cannot run without its critical data. And, since it’s the main focus of the BDR plan, it is obviously essential you include backup and recovery systems in the plan.

What type of data backup plan you choose is ultimately based on different factors. That includes how important you deem your data, your particular type of business, and other various factors.

You might choose the 3-2-1 backup rule to ensure thorough protection, a backup via the cloud to a secondary site, or data mirroring to keep a real-time copy of everything.

3. Available Resources

What resources will you acquire and maintain to ensure business continuity? Will you have computer systems set up at a secondary site in case your initial location is compromised? Will you employ your own IT team or utilize managed IT services to provide assistance?

Securing these resources before a disaster can make a big difference in how quickly your business operations are up and running again.

4. Clearly Defined Roles and Responsibilities

Communication is essential during any disaster. Employees and other mission-critical personnel must know their roles and responsibilities so that important steps are followed. Provide all personnel with written instructions detailing what they must do in the event of a disaster. If possible, set up automatic notifications and an information sharing application that everyone can utilize to remain in contact.

5. Testing Procedures

How do you know your BDR plan will work if you don’t take the time to test it?

There are several ways to test your plan, from a simple review to a simulation to a full-scale enactment. Testing your BDR plan enables you to determine if there are any flaws or weaknesses and make adjustments as necessary, especially when you implement new systems or make changes to the business infrastructure.

Talk to the BDR Professionals

If you need guidance on BDR planning (or if you’d like to outsource it completely), turn to Visual Edge IT. We have experience in helping organizations like yours develop and manage their plans to ensure uptime and reliability.