Disaster Recovery Plans

[FranWatson]

Has anyone developed an I/T disaster recovery plan for schools or know where I can find some samples or even better something I can just copy and modify.

[irsprint84]

All mine is is admins username/ password, what each server holds and exchange settings etc.. locked in a safe

[GREED]

Welcome to the forum FranWatson

How in depth are you looking for something like this, whole hog (ie school burnt down) or what?

I have written about 8 for schools past and present including schools I am currently working with.

[FranWatson]

Welcome to the forum FranWatson

How in depth are you looking for something like this, whole hog (ie school burnt down) or what?

I have written about 8 for schools past and present including schools I am currently working with.

Got dinged by auditors for not having a plan in place. Problem I have is that administration does not really understand disaster recovery and that dollars will be involved. They actually thought that the policy / procedure manual I created was the disaster recovery plan. Want to create a good plan and continue to build on it once admin get on board. Once I get something in place and get approved by the board of director, I want to be able to get all departments to understanfd the concept and realize if we have a problem, we are dead in the water. Thx

[fawkers]

Hello FranWatson,

Welcome.

We have intergrated DR plan with the rest of the school but basicly what we have done it look at what would happen to each block\area of the school vs. your chosen disaster and what that would mean to each department. In our case a flood in IT would just mean classrooms out of use for the curriculum side of things (maybe needing mobile classrooms) but for us it could mean anything from a full on disaster since that where are servers are to a mop up job.
Hope that helps abit.

[GREED]

Obviously without knowing the details of your place I cannot say much. Really any plan should be built into a larger campus DR plan, as often things to plan for and/or do overlap or include other departments. Think bigger! Things to include will be

What are your critical services (think long and hard about everything you will 'need' in the event you loose the server room)
What could you do to get around lost services (online storage, email archives etc)
Think about setting up an emergency response team in the event of such an event
What support you will have from local services
What can you put in place in the short, medium and long term as preventative measures, what things should be done routinely (ie for security), and how much all of this will cost.

Hope that helps for starters

[pete]

Be aware that until your org actually has a minor disaster they probably won't take it too seriously.

As a rule of thumb your DR plan should give you the confidence that a just-taken-known-good backup does when you're about to do something drastic to a server.

Generally it's a case of:

1) In the event of (insert disaster) what information and data will we require to a) ensure access to data and b) rebuild the network?
2) Where is that information and data kept? Where else does it need to be kept to survive the disaster?
3) What tools and resources will we need to a) get a basic "get access to data with a couple of clients" network shoehorned together b) get a proper rebuild / restore underway. c) Be happy that everything is back up and working as it should be.
4) How long will it take to achieve stages a, b and c? Are those timescales acceptable to Management? What pre-emptive steps can we take to reduce those timescales?
5) How will we communicate with customers and suppliers while recovering?
6) How much will it cost to a) implement and test the plan? b) use the plan in the event of a disaster?
7) Which of our suppliers can ship us a bunch of new servers next-day delivery (or allow us to collect in a van) on 30-day payment terms on verbal say-so?

You get the idea. Plus have a bag of install media, tools, torches, spare cash + takeaway menus, documentation etc in a secure remote location.

More reading:
Disaster Recover Plan
SANS InfoSec Reading Room - Disaster Recovery
Sample Plans | tools
Disaster recovery kits