Disaster recovery (DR) planning prepares your network for catastrophic failures like fires, floods, ransomware, and hardware failures.
DR planning questions:
- What's the maximum acceptable downtime? (RTO: Recovery Time Objective)
- How much data loss is acceptable? (RPO: Recovery Point Objective)
- Which systems are most critical?
- What's the recovery order?
Network DR components: Hardware spares, configuration backups stored off-site, redundant circuits from different providers, documented recovery procedures, and vendor contact lists.
Test your DR plan annually with tabletop exercises.