What is a disaster recovery plan?

A disaster recovery plan is fundamentally a structured process designed to restore IT infrastructure and operations following a disruption, such as a natural disaster, cyber-attack, or system failure. This plan outlines the procedures and resources necessary to recover critical systems and data, ensuring that an organization can continue to function or quickly resume operations with minimal impact on business continuity.

The plan typically includes specific protocols for data backup, recovery time objectives, roles and responsibilities of team members, and the technology needed to restore services. By having a comprehensive disaster recovery plan in place, organizations can mitigate risk and enhance their resilience against unforeseen events that could otherwise lead to significant downtime and loss of data.

This focus on recovery sets the disaster recovery plan apart from other options that do not directly address the recovery aspect of IT infrastructure or the management of data integrity in the face of crises.