Disaster Recovery Plan Risk Assessment Research Papers Example

Results

The results of the project include a disaster recovery plan for the WETT LAB. The disaster recovery plan mainly focuses on the data and other IT assets owing to the nature of the work carried out by WETT LAB. Prior to the development of the disaster recovery plan, a detailed evaluation of company’s assets, and risk assessment is carried out in the project.

Evaluation of Assets

In order to carry out a risk assessment, a detailed study of the WETT LAB’s assets was carried out. These assets include hardware as well as software assets. The summary of the study for the assets held at WETT LAB is mentioned below: -
TOX CALC TIDEPOOL scientific enhanced excel spreadsheet information kept for 5 years (all results) records of logging data water chains of water

Collection of water (temp of the water, time collected, dissolved O2 content - kept for 5 years)

Calibration log in the lab measure lights in the room log of the daily temperature for fridge units 3 servers
One database
One webpage
One storage UNITREND drive or barracuda systems for entire server
Barracude appliance that installs (backups online - the cloud)
The major points of the risk assessment are mentioned below: -
Risk Assessment
A simple way of carrying out risk assessment is through presenting the risks in a risk assessment matrix. The risk assessment matrix is a matrix developed for the likelihood of the risk against the consequences of it. A certain number is obtained through assigning these two aspects of a risk which tells about the level of risk. Following is the risk matrix used for risk assessment of WETT LAB: -
The above matrix indicates that the risks are required to be categorized according to their likelihood along with the consequences of each. After identifying both of these aspects of all the conceivable risks the final score tells about the level of risks assessed through this matrix. The green highlighted cells in the risk assessment matrix indicate that the level of risk in low. The yellow highlighted cells indicate a moderate risk level. The orange shows a significant risk level whereas the red highlighted cells show the high level of risks .

Following are the conceivable risks that are assessed in this report for WETT LAB:-

Accidental outages: The facility of WETT LAB is directly connected with the local grid which has very low power outages. However, in case of such an outage the company may experience loss of data, failure of equipment etc. The likelihood of the risk is “Unlikely” and the consequence is Major. Therefore this risk stands in the orange cell of the risk assessment matrix that shows a significant risk level and should be mitigated through effective disaster recovery plan.
Hardware failures: Due to the advent of more stable and high quality technologies, the equipment of WET LAB has high sustainability hence resulting in low chances of hardware failure. On the other hand, any failure of hardware would result in losses in terms of finances as well as data. This risk therefore falls in the rare and major part of the matrix. The moderate nature of this risk results in moderate level mitigation which may include timely replacement of equipment that has completed its book life.
Downtime of the server: The server up-time is an external risk in which if the server gets down for WETT LAB then the back up to be stored in the server would have to wait till the server comes up again. WETT LAB has acquired a fairly high uptime server with rare chances of downtime. The consequences of this risk are minor hence this risk is placed in the green area of the matrix.
IT security related risks: The most critical risks in IT infrastructure are security related risks which have been well managed by the WETT LAB. They have implemented secure firewalls and dedicated networks. The chances of a security threat / risk are unlikely and the consequences of such risks are minor due to multiple backups retained at various levels. This risk hence falls in the yellow category and needs attention to review the security risks in the organization at regular intervals.
Natural disasters (Flood/Earthquake etc.): Any natural disaster would damage the equipment of the company but the data that is backed up at various levels would remain intact hence securing the smooth operation of the company upon purchase of new equipment. The natural disaster based risks are rare for WETT LAB and the consequences are minor due to backups hence brining this risk to yellow level.

Risk Mitigation with Disaster Recovery Plan:

The risk mitigation for the risks mentioned is given below along with a disaster recovery plan: -
This plan will commence when any internal or external threat occurs within WETT LAB’s Information Technology Systems. Internal threats range from loss of power, fire, flood, theft or anything that would affect the integrity of the data stored within the site. External threats are any kind of disaster that put’s the entire facility in danger .
An affordable backup solution is needed which can be completely trusted, it is important to realize that solution should be moderately cheap as the project is not backed by sufficient funds. Significant amount of time is invested in searching for the firm that would offer right price with right kind of solutions. Therefore, UNITRENDS is conceived as the eminent and affordable backup solution that offers wide array of cloud based and physical options. UNITRENDS largely based on the reviews of stellar on services and customer support. It happens to be economical than other gigantic names providing backup solutions. There are numerous options available in cloud service of UNITRENDS, one of the best options is “no metered cloud” as it offers immeasurable quantity of data to be used, however they charge accordingly i.e. gigabyte based .

Discussion of Results (Evaluation of Results)

The identification, evaluation, assessment and mitigation of risks form the basis for the disaster recovery plan which is mentioned in the result. The disaster recovery plan developed for WETT LAB seems effective since there is no loss of data after the disaster recovery plan gets executed. Further improvements to safeguard the equipment and reduce the likelihood of each risk can be implemented in order to ensure smooth operation of WETT LAB.

Conclusion and Recommendations for Future Work

The disaster recovery plan developed in this report is suitable for implementation in WETT LAB. Future improvements in order to ensure a safe working environment to safeguard IT assets and data can be implemented through obtaining better equipment that processes and backs up the data more frequently and seamlessly without compromising the response time of the server. The WETT LAB needs to continually carry out analysis of the risks and mitigate them according to their level of significance and likelihood as mentioned in the risk assessment matrix.

References

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DISASTER RECOVERY PLAN . (2012). Texas A&M University.
Occupational Health and Safety Risk Assessment. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.onsafelines.com: http://www.onsafelines.com/risk-assessment-matrix-5x5.html#.VQqM9I5yFdg
Recovery-Series Appliances. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.unitrends.com: http://www.unitrends.com/products/physical-appliances/recovery-series
Unitrends Cloud. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.unitrends.com/products/cloud-business-continuity-and-dr/unitrends-cloud: http://www.unitrends.com/products/cloud-business-continuity-and-dr/unitrends-cloud