Databarracks addresses UK’s DR shortcomings with new Disaster Recovery Toolkit

To address the issue and ensure businesses are taking adequate precautions to protect themselves from disaster, Databarracks has launched the Disaster Recovery Toolkit. The free, downloadable kit comprises of three parts:

- A Cost of Downtime Calculator allowing users to calculate precisely how much a given disaster would cost their business per department, per IT function or overall
- A DR Responsibilities Chart outlining who is responsible for what in a disaster recovery scenario, from IT admins up to the IT Director and CEO
- A DR Runbook detailing exact procedures and processes to follow if disaster strikes, personalised to each organisation

Peter Groucutt, managing director at Databarracks, comments: “Real IT disaster recovery has, until now, been a prohibitively expensive service and could only be afforded by the largest organisations. Larger organisations have dedicated Business Continuity Managers and the time and resources to afford comprehensive DR planning, whereas smaller organisations commonly do not.

“Cloud computing has brought about huge reductions in cost, meaning DR should now be a top priority for all organisations regardless of size. This is why we’ve created our DR Toolkit – to help small and medium organisations get up to speed with disaster recovery and raise awareness of the very real risks of neglecting your BCP.

“We wanted to be able to provide one kit that contained everything an IT team needs to create and maintain a watertight disaster recovery plan. It can be used as a whole for those that are starting from scratch, or you could pick and choose the components that are most relevant to you.

“If you’re an IT manager that needs to secure financial backing for your new DR proposal, use the cost of downtime calculator to show your board exactly how much they stand to lose per department if your IT goes down. It’s difficult for a board to ignore hard figures. If you’re an IT admin who doesn’t know where your line of responsibility starts and ends in a disaster, keep a copy of the responsibilities chart and run-book to hand so you know exactly what you should be doing, and who you should be calling.”

Groucutt concludes, “Organisations in the UK are risking too much by not having solid BCPs and DR plans in place. Our DR toolkit shows that good plans don’t have to be complicated or overly expensive, but they do need to be there and they need to be maintained regularly.”