Disasters happen.  In fact, according to the Munchener Ruckversicherungs-Gesellschaft, Geo Risks Research, 355 events, from floods to tornados to tsunamis and earthquakes occurred in 2011.  IT organizations need protection from such horrific events, but also those that are more common place, for instance power outages and equipment failures.  

Here are a few interesting statistics from the latest Symantec State of the Data Center report (available later this year):

• 70% of organizations experience downtime from power failure (11.3 hours per outage)
• 63% experience cyber attacks (52.7 hours per outage)
• 26% conducted a power outage and failure impact assessment
• Median downtime per outage in the last 12 months was 5 hours
• Organizations experienced an average of 4 downtime incidents in the past 12 months

When most people hear the term "Disaster Recovery", they immediately think of data replication.  While data is critical when a recovery is necessary, that is only half the battle.  The application or business service must be recovered and testing capabilities must be considered as well.  

There are five methods or capabilities that must be considered in building a bullet proof disaster recovery plan.  They are:

1. Detect and report the disaster
2. Repurpose the disaster recovery site
3. Automate application recovery
4. Ensure data availability
5. Test the recovery plan with zero downtime

To hear more about these disaster recovery bullet proofing methods, please listen to this webcast.