A disaster recovery or business continuity plan is ESSENTIAL to protect the well being of any organization. Although this cannot really be over emphasized, so many organizations still side step the issue, or have plans which are out of date or just unworkable.

There are a number of reasons for this, including complexity, and of course the fact that some vendors sell planning products which are themselves very difficult to manage. The recent trend though is to seek simplicty and good productivity in the planning process: to create the plan directly using a quality template and good supporting guides and forms.

Leading this change is the well known BCP Generator. This is very comprehensive yet straight forward. It uses a full template and an 'interactive' guide to explain each part of the plan. The macros in the guide will even jump you to the correct template section as and when required!

Read more about the BCP Generator Here.

Policies underpin an organizations whole approach to business continuity. They determine the fundamental practices and culture throughout the enterprise with respect to disaster recovery.

A comprehensive (and ISO 17799 compliant) set of pre-written disaster recovery and information security policies are now available. For further information click: here.

Alternatively, they can be obtained from here for unlimited use within your organization

The bottom line, however, is to ensure that unambiguous disciplines exist, essentially a framework, to ensure that sound continuity practices are adopted and maintained throughout the organization.

A number of resources and aids exist to assist in planning and preparing for disaster. The following sections may be of use:

DISASTER RECOVERY KIT
This is an interesting resource designed to help you audit your contingency arrangements and business continuity plan (if you have one in place).

It consists of questionniares, checklists and a range of other materials and items.

Further information: Here

THE BOOKSHOP
The online bookstore for disaster recovery & business continuity materials is now open