PLAN TESTING & MAINTENANCE
While efforts will be made initially to construct this DR Plan is as complete and accurate a manner as possible, it is essentially impossible to address all possible problems at any one time. Additionally, over time the Disaster Recovery needs of the organization will change.
MAINTENANCE
The DR Plan will be updated annually or any time a major system update or upgrade is performed, whichever is more often. The Disaster Recovery Lead will be responsible for updating the entire document, and so is permitted to request information and updates from other employees and departments within the organization to complete this task.
Maintenance of the plan will include (but is not limited to) the following:
- Ensuring that all team lists are up to date
- Reviewing the plan to ensure that all the instructions are still relevant to the organization
- Making any major changes and revisions in the plan to reflect organizational shifts, changes, and goals
- Ensuring that the plan meets any requirements specified in new laws
During the Maintenance periods, any changes to the Disaster Recovery Teams must be accounted for. If any member of a Disaster Recovery Team no longer works with the company, it is the responsibility of the Disaster Recovery Lead to appoint a new team member.
TESTING
Company is committed to ensuring that this DR Plan is functional. The DR Plan should be tested every 12 months to ensure that it is still effective. Testing the plan will be carried out as follows:
- Failover Testing: Under this scenario, servers and applications are brought online in an isolated environment. There is no impact to existing operations or uptime. Systems administrators ensure that all operating systems come up cleanly. Application administrators validate that all applications perform as expected.
Any gaps in the DR Plan that are discovered during the above phases will be addressed by the Disaster Recovery Lead as well as any resources that he/she will require.
