IT contingency plan: be prepared for the major outage
Every computer is down, the server room is flooded, or a cyber attack is under way. Do you know who does what, and in what order?
Purpose of the plan
Are you ready if things go wrong? An outage costs working hours and recovery money. A plan makes the stop shorter.
If your IT systems are hit by an outage, it shows on the bottom line. Employees cannot work, and data recovery costs more the longer it drags on.
With a contingency plan, everyone knows how the systems come back up, and in what order.
For some businesses it is also a legal requirement that data can be recovered and that an emergency plan exists for outages. Your data is valuable, so recovery must be planned and tested.
An IT contingency plan also strengthens customer trust: You can show a clear plan if a major outage strikes.
During an outage
Call if disaster strikes. With a contingency agreement we are written into your plan, ready to re-establish.
A fatal outage calls for immediate help from someone who has done it before. As part of your contingency plan, we agree in advance that you contact us when disaster strikes.
Then we come out and re-establish your IT systems in the order your plan prioritises. At the same time we make sure attackers cannot get back in the same way. Who calls whom, and how quickly we respond, is set out in the contingency agreement.
Contact route and response time during an outage are agreed in the contingency agreement and set out in your SLA.
A good IT contingency plan takes preparation. From risk assessment and role allocation to testing the plan and training your employees.
You get help all the way from risk assessment to training your employees.
Risk assessment
What could hit you, and how hard?
Roles & responsibilities
Who does what in a crisis?
Incident handling
Clear procedures for different scenarios.
Test & update
The plan is tested, so it actually works under pressure.
Cybersecurity built in
The plan covers attack scenarios too.
Compliance
Meet the legal requirements in your industry.
Contingency agreement
One entry point when it is urgent. With a contingency agreement you know who to call, and what happens next.
The agreement sets out the contact route, the priority order for recovery and the response times in your SLA. Everything is agreed in advance, so nobody has to improvise in the middle of an outage.