A Primer on How to Create a Bullet-Proof Disaster Recovery Plan for the Entire Organization

A Primer on How to Create a Bullet-Proof Disaster Recovery Plan for the Entire Organization

Elizabeth M. Ferrarini,

She is a free-lance writer from Boston, Massachusetts. Reach her at iswive@aol.com

Minutes after the first of two planes plunged into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Inc., the largest tenant in the World Trade Center, declared a disaster and rushed its disaster recovery plan into place with the help of SunGard Recovery Solutions, a third-party disaster recovery service provider. At the last time, about seven other tenants in the World Trade Center followed suit and contacted SunGard.

The events of September have made disaster recovery planning rise to the top of every organization’s IT department priority list. Until the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, few companies had even invested in shared data backups. Raging Wire Telecommunications, a California disaster recovery firm, estimates that the 1993 bombing put half the 350 companies in the World Trade Center out of business because of the disruption. Thanks to improvements in disaster recovery planning, more tenants of the recent World Center disaster will be spared, according to Raging Wire. However, about