Case Study: Designing a Disaster Recovery Plan

SCENARIO

Giant Beverage Company is a manufacturer and distributor of large containers of soft drink syrup. Their order processing facility is located in Miami, Florida, an area prone to hurricanes and flooding.

Richard Joseph, President and Chief Executive Officer of Giant Beverage, is concerned that a major disaster could have a dramatic impact on the company's ability to process and fulfill orders in a timely manner. Many of Giant's clients are located outside of the southeastern United States and would still require soft drink syrup if a disaster struck Florida. Richard feels that a prolonged inability to satisfy customer orders would result in the loss of many clients to competitors and wants to develop a plan to quickly recover from a major hurricane.

ANALYSIS

The disaster planning team met several times to discuss the available options and came to the following conclusions regarding each of the three critical areas of disaster recovery:

• Facility Recovery. Giant Beverage maintains a large manufacturing facility in Nashville, Tennessee that has ample space to locate a disaster recovery facility. Giant decided to implement a warm site at that location. They purchased sufficient computing equipment to sustain operations on a temporary basis for up to two months.

  They also developed a list of required resources if a more extended stay becomes necessary.

• Data Recovery. Giant Beverage already has a comprehensive data backup strategy developed as part of their business continuity plan. They previously stored the backup tapes only at their Florida data processing center. Under the new disaster plan, they ship a copy of all backup tapes to the Tennessee facility to assist in the event a disaster occurs. Personnel at that facility will restore those tapes to the spare equipment located there if a disaster strikes the primary data center.

• Restoration of Normal Operations. Giant designated three members of the IT staff to remain in Florida as the restoration team. They will take action to facilitate a speedy return to the primary facility after danger passes and they have a chance to repair any damage to the facility and equipment.