1. Take inventory of hardware and softwareThe first step in creating any disaster recovery plan is to take a comprehensive hardware and software inventory. It’s impossible to adequately plan for disaster response unless you have identified the resources that need to be protected. Such an inventory should also list any assets that might be useful in either preventing or recovering from a disaster.
2. Determine equipment needs
Once you’ve created a hardware and software inventory, then the next thing that must be done is to determine any equipment needs. For example, you might find that you need a higher capacity backup target, or perhaps you might need to install some additional servers to provide redundancy for various workloads. Your goal during this phase of the planning process should be to identify what disaster mitigation and recovery strategies currently exist and where you might be able to overcome deficiencies by adding some additional equipment to your data center.

3. Set up RTO and RPO

Another key step in preparing a disaster recovery plan is to define a recovery time objective (RTO) and a recovery point objective (RPO). The RTO essentially defines the maximum amount of time that it should take to recover from disaster, whereas the RPO determines how frequently data is backed up as well as the volume of data that could potentially be lost in a disaster due to not yet having been backed up.
4. Conduct risk assessment and business impact analysis
As you work toward creating a disaster recovery plan, it’s important to conduct a risk assessment and business impact analysis. The goal behind doing so is to identify risks to your organization’s ability to do business, and then quantify those risks based on the likelihood that they’ll occur and the severity of the impact that those risks might have to your organization. Natural disasters, for example, are likely to occur at some point and could potentially be devastating to the organization. As such, natural disasters are something that you should definitely plan for.

Fire is another type of disaster that you should plan for. If this disaster occurs, it could severely harm your organization, so it’s important to include the potential for fire among your disaster planning efforts. Of course, natural disasters and fire are just two examples of adverse situations that can impact an organization. A good disaster recovery plan identifies potential risks beyond just fire or natural disaster.