Disaster Recovery Planning:
Ensuring Business Continuity

What is this course about?

This course provides practical methods and techniques that anyone can follow in order to construct an effective disaster recovery plan. Business Impact Analysis helps you identify the priorities for recovery and maintenance of essential business processes following a disaster. Using this analysis, you can develop a realistic disaster recovery plan that enables you to direct resources to the restoration of the infrastructure, data, systems, and applications that are essential to the continuity of business operations. An effective disaster recovery-planning project also includes training, testing and plan maintenance.

What is a disaster recovery plan and why do I need one?

A disaster recovery plan involves analysing an organisation's risks and articulating a plan for addressing those risks. Without such an analysis, it is impossible to determine the extent to which measures taken may protect the organisation. The formal disaster recovery plan document records the actions that are needed, the timescales for their completion, the people responsible for taking action, and the resources they may require in order to perform the specified tasks, should disaster strike.

To effectively plan for system and network outages that will affect mission-critical operations, it is necessary to first identify those operations. This course helps you understand this point of view and implement disaster prevention and recovery techniques in a systematic and effective way. Business continuity, a crucial aspect of disaster recovery planning, is emphasised in this course.

Who will benefit from this course?

This course is valuable for anyone involved in ICT (Information and Communication Technology) Service Delivery, including service delivery, line and project managers, help desk personnel, first-, second-, and third-line support staff, project team members, software, hardware and quality engineers, programmers, analysts, consultants and other technology professionals. Facilities, human resources, finance and other general business managers also benefit from attending the course because they learn to recognise the need for their involvement in developing and implementing the plan.

What background do I need?

Approximately 50 percent of the course is devoted to workshops. You need a basic knowledge of technology concepts.

Why should I be concerned about disaster recovery planning?

The extensive usage of computers and networks, coupled with the explosive growth of the Internet, has led to a great deal of concern about system and network availability and integrity.

Organisations are vulnerable to outages that affect their capability of utilising systems for mission-critical purposes. Outages range from destruction of corporate headquarters to attacks via networks connected to the Internet. For example, a computer virus or a fire in the computer centre can interfere with your organisation's ability to utilise its mission-critical systems and networks.

This course utilises a project-planning approach to develop the steps you and your organisation must take to help ensure the availability and integrity of your systems and networks and ensure their recoverability in case of disaster. Course 289 is more about the process through which one must work to develop a relevant and effective business continuity and disaster recovery plan, rather than the technology employed to implement it.

Will this course help me prepare for the CISSP Certification examination?

Yes, this course helps you prepare for the CISSP Certification exam. For more information, please refer to the CISSP Q&A.

Does this course provide me with (ISC)² continuing professional education (CPE) credits?

Yes! Learning Tree, in agreement with (ISC)², is a recognised "Trusted CPE Provider." This course provides you with 32 "A-level" CPE credits toward maintaining your CISSP Certification. Please see the CISSP Q&A for more information on the continuing education requirements of (ISC)².

How much time is spent on each topic?

What workshops are included in the course?

You work in groups to build a disaster recovery plan for a fictitious organisation. Following each major topic, the course offers an exercise session on that topic.

Is this course specific to large servers or local area networks?

No. Organisations utilise various combinations of computer technologies and networks to support their mission-critical operations. This course covers the core concepts of systems usage and availability regardless of system size and network topology.

Is this course applicable to a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification?

Yes. Although this course is not designed as preparation for the exam, it is beneficial to anyone working toward PMI's PMP certification. For those who are currently certified, completion of this course counts as 23 professional development units (60 units must be completed every three years to maintain certification). For more details, please see the Learning Tree PMI Registered Education Provider Q&A.

If you are an experienced project manager intending to take the PMP exam, you should take Course 276, Preparing for the Project Management Professional (PMP)^® Exam. In this course you learn essential PMBOK^® Guide terminology, tools and techniques. You gain practical test-taking experience through PMI-style practice exams and create your own personal study plan for continued use after the course.

How does this course relate to other Learning Tree courses?

This course complements many other courses in Learning Tree's security and management curricula:

• 940, Securing Web Applications, Services and Servers: Hands-On provides in-depth, hands-on experience securing Web-based applications and host servers within your organisation
• 468, System and Network Security: A Comprehensive Introduction identifies internal and external security risks and provides countermeasures to protect an organisation's systems.
• 1220, Securing the Cloud: Hands-On offers the knowledge and skills to analyse, manage and implement security for public and private clouds
• 296, Project Management: Skills for Success presents the skills needed for planning, organising, implementing and delivering successful projects using paper and PC-based techniques.
• 294, Influence Skills: Getting Results without Direct Authority focuses on the specific behaviours and attitudes that enable you to achieve desired results without relying on the use of authority.

The following systems administration course may also be useful:

• 594, Oracle® Database 10g Administration: Hands-On 

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