DRPlan

DRPlan is the structured document and program that governs how an organization will recover information technology and business operations after a disruption. It is the core component of disaster recovery planning and sits within the broader discipline of business continuity management. The plan outlines recovery objectives, roles, and procedures to resume critical services.

A DRPlan defines the scope and objectives, including recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs), the identification of critical assets, data and application dependencies, and required recovery strategies. It specifies activation criteria, decision authorities, communication protocols, and escalation paths for stakeholders inside and outside the organization.

Typical contents include asset inventories, dependency maps, data backup and restoration procedures, failover and failback steps, site recovery options (hot, warm, or cold), alternative facilities, supplier and third-party recovery obligations, and a contact and escalation list. It also describes testing, documentation, and post-incident review requirements.

DRPlan follows a lifecycle of risk assessment and business impact analysis, strategy selection, plan development, training, and ongoing testing. Plans are maintained through version control, regular exercises, and updates in response to changes in technology or business processes. Compliance with standards such as ISO 22301 and NIST SP 800-34 is common.

In practice, a DRPlan is the disaster recovery portion of a broader business continuity program, focusing on IT and operational resumption. It complements business continuity planning by ensuring rapid restoration of critical services while a longer-term recovery and resilience program proceeds.