Evaluating disaster recovery plans using the cloud

Abstract

Every organization requires a business continuity plan (BCP) or disaster recovery plan (DRP) which falls within cost constraints while achieving the target recovery requirements in terms of recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO). The organizations must identify the likely events that can cause disasters and evaluate their impact. They need to set the objectives clearly, evaluate feasible disaster recovery plans to choose the DRP that would be optimal. The paper examines tradeoffs involved and presents guidelines for choosing among the disaster recovery options. The optimal disaster recovery planning should take into consideration the key parameters including the initial cost, the cost of data transfers, and the cost of data storage. The organization data needs and its disaster recovery objectives need to be considered. To evaluate the risk, the types of disaster (natural or human-caused) need to be identified. The probability of a disaster occurrence needs to be assessed along with the costs of corresponding failures. An appropriate approach for the cost evaluation needs to be determined to allow a quantitative assessment of currently active disaster recovery plans (DRP) in terms of the time need to restore the service (associated with RTO) and possible loss of data (associated with RPO). This can guide future development of the plan and maintenance of the DRP. Such a quantitative approach would also allow CIOs to compare applicable DRP solutions.