The composition of the disaster recovery team
For any work to run efficiently and effectively, it requires a team to understand this mandate. The disaster recovery team includes the following 8 teams; the senior management, corporate support units, Facilities, Fire and safety Maintenance staff, IT technical staff (specifically including database, systems, and networking, IT managers, InfoSec technicians, InfoSec managers. However, “there are sub-topics within the data recovery team responsible for separate sequences of activity” (Whitman and, 2007). The responsibilities and roles of the disaster recovery teams are discussed as follows.
The damage assessment team is a team, led by the technical coordinator who is responsible of appointing other team members for the following fields; the physical plant, network services, operations and the technical services. This team is mandated with the role of providing information to the recovering management team in order for it to make the right choice for the recovery seen. The other role is the provision of an assignment of the recovery ability of the main hardware components.
Network recovery team is a team, headed by the network coordinator who selects other members from the technical services, network services, physical, services and other services. This team is responsible in the end, the restoration of the company network and any other network at the recovery site. According to Whitman and mattered, (2007) “the network team works to determine the extent of damage to the network,” and “write the hardware as well as Internet and Internet connectivity.”
The application coordinator leads application recovery team. It is also mandated with the role of developing procedures that address specific problems, analyzing additional recovery, duties, and the interfacing with the testing of applications for the application users.
The administrative support team is led by the administrative coordinator, who appoints other members. These teams’ major roles entail the provision of support to the other teams, the employees and their families. It is also responsible for taking administrative duties so that technicians and engineers can concentrate on their duties properly. The administrator can also “configure the system to trigger an alert on any change within a critical data folder” (Whitman and mattered, 2007).
The recovery management team is responsible for the directing of all, the entire recovery work.
The communications team constitutes of legal department and public relations. This team is responsible for providing information regarding the management of organization. As Whitman and mattered, (2007) stated team offers “feedback to anyone desiring additional information about the organization’s efforts in recovering from the disaster.”
The platform recovery team is maintained with the responsibility of coordinating restoration operations among parties undertaking duties in different platforms and communicating the status and needs information to the other teams.
The computer operations team headed by the computer operations coordinator undertakes the following roles; provision of phone assistance on the helpdesk, provision of operator staffing, which are the computer systems and lastly, provision of control function to establish job schedules and ensure that applications are restored.
The key components for a comprehensive recovery plan.
The disaster recovery plan is formulated as a result of one of the following: extensive damage to the system, data and networks as a result of not taking keen action to contain and intrusion. This can lead to the escalation of costs, loss of business and production. It can also be formulated as a result of a possible intrusion affecting most of the systems both outside and outside the organization because the staff may not have known who to notify in case a disaster occurs and with extra action. “Data recovery requires effective backup strategies and flexible hardware configurations” (Whitman and mattered, 2007). The disaster recovery plan should follow a well laid down structure which entails the following: a communications plan, a plan of acquiring hardware, list of people ready to be contacted if a disaster occurs, information containing the owners of administrative plan, instructions for calling the persons to tackle the disaster in case it occurs and lastly, a checklist, which lays down tasks for the recovery scenario.
For any disaster recovery plan to be effective, all the responsible teams should work, and in hand to ensure that the recovery process is effective and efficiently undertaken. For any organization administering and SQL Server database, it should have ready at hand restoration plan, and tested backup system for recovering the database in case of a disaster. The system should be so efficient that it can restore the data at the most minimum time possible in order for the operation of the organization to go uninterruptedly then all the recovery steps being set out should be thoroughly tested to ensure that they do not default at the most time of need. The disaster recovery plan should state how much time the team should take to undertake the job at hand.
The recovery plan entails certain key components which include: SQL Server recovery model which provides three key recovery models: full, simple and bulk-blogged. The choice of the model affects possibility for recovering a disaster for a database. Hence, you should select the optimal model for the backup of the data.
In the management of backup media, one should consider if the Management Plan and Tracking System, for restoring the data, are in place, and are scheduled to overwrite the backup media. Again, if the environment is a multi-server 1, you should consider using distributed or centralized backups. You should also be in a position to minimize any chance of data loss during the recovery process.
In order for one to recover from a potential disaster he should do the following: apply the necessary server pack and installing a Microsoft Windows platform. Also installing Microsoft SQL Server and applying the required service pack.
But if it is not possible to restore the data, you can reconfigure the server for the necessary library and security mode or confirm if the SQL instance is running well and if not, you can restart it. This is done by using the SQL Server configuration manager. Furthermore, one can be able to conduct auditing and able to reduce disaster user errors in any recovery work. This is done through data definition, event notification, SQL trace and SQL Server agent. You can also check if the Windows application log changed by using sp_addserver and sp_dropservers to compare it with the SQL Server. Also, you can restore and recover the data base using its recovery plan. Again, verify the system is available by using the base function script in order to ensure recovery plan. Then you can allow users to resume their data usage.
Summary of the four key phases of disaster recovery
The four key phases of disaster recovery include disaster response phase, recovery phase, resumption phase and restoration phase. The response phase is the phase that involves implementation of the reaction to a disaster invading the organization, and is based on those actions designed to stabilize or control the situation. In the recovery phase the organization establishes the recovery of the functions that are time-critical in the business. Those functions include those that are necessary to prevent image and economic loss of the organization and those required to reestablish business operations. The functions of the resumption phase are similar to that of the recovery plan, but they are not critical functions. Finally, the restoration phase is where the “organization conducts the operations necessary to rebuild the facilities and reestablish operations at “home base” (Whitman and mattered, 2007).
References
Microsoft (2014). Planning for Disaster Recovery. Retrieved February 7, 2014, from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178094%28v=SQL.105%29.aspx
Whitman, M. E., & Mattord, H. J. (2007). Principles of incident response and disaster recovery. Boston, Mass: Thomson Course Technology.
