Thus, the IT disaster recovery plan needs to be continuously updated with the latest configuration settings reported in a clear, consistent manner. All changes should be easily identifiable to preserve IT decisions.

1. There are three main reasons that detailed configuration data is not collected and kept current in many enterprises: Almost no company has enough IT staff. According to the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), of the current US IT workforce requirement of 10 million, there are over 800,000 vacancies that cannot be filled due to the lack of trained talent. The workload increases, but hiring never keeps up.



2. The technical competence of individual IT talent varies with training and experience. Configuration documentation may seem an "entry-level" task that most professionals seek to quickly move beyond. Disparate IT staff members often collect different types of information and the quality of their reports varies greatly. The more senior IT people are assigned to "more critical" tasks, deployed by management where they provide the most perceived value for their salaries, which average $85,000 per year ($75 per hour). The hours needed to assemble, verify, and report configuration settings could amount to tens of thousands of dollars in a larger IT shop.



3. IT staff turnover ranges from 8-17 percent, depending on industry and geographic region. The costs of hiring and training new staff to replace lost employees is nearly triple the IT overhead cost (about $225 per hour). And when IT staff leaves, their knowledge of the corporate IT infrastructure leaves with them.

Are Backups Enough?

One of the most common reasons that detailed configuration information is not recorded is the belief that backups contain everything needed to restore systems into production.

The effectiveness of backup tapes depends upon the nature of the disaster. A system that experiences a simple power outage or hardware failure can easily be restored from backups, but restoring following a complete meltdown is another matter.

Critical information not contained in backups includes: hardware specification for each system, EEPROM settings, specific boot instructions, SCSI ID manipulation, BIOS versions, virtual memory swap space sizes, disk partition slices, space allocation considerations, recovery/re-installation prerequisite considerations, network services provided, network dependencies required for normal functioning, kernel parameters, initial system installation cluster, and configurations that affect storage devices. Typically, volume management software and RAID software is on the tape, but is useful in disk arrangement prior to reinstallation and restoration.

While preserving business data and transactions, most backup tapes contain no configuration data. If you have a hot backup site and don’t even need to use tapes, you still need to build a system on which to restore the data. Before you can restore the data, you need to reconfigure your IT infrastructure to support it.


Following are the five stages of a typical disaster recovery.

1. Immediate Response: This ensures the safety and evacuation of all employees, notification of appropriate management and continuity personnel, assessment, command center activation, and disaster declaration processes.

To demonstrate how immediate a response can be: On September 11th, the first disaster declaration to reach a backup service came at 9:02 am, 17 minutes after the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center.

2. Environment Restoration: This phase provides alternate space for the people and equipment. Generally people relocate to recovery work areas while computer equipment is sent to a hot site or data recovery center. Operating system software is restored for computer systems, while basic facility preparations are conducted for work areas.