While preparing for the possibility of data loss or failover is something every company should have a contingency plan for, the truth is that many enterprises likely would have little or no idea what to do if their systems were compromised by a natural disaster, malicious attack or system shutdown.

Luckily for those companies, IT infrastructure solutions provider Bluelock recently released a new recovery contingency checklist for those looking to get their systems up and running in case of a data emergency.

The most important thing for an organization to do to prepare for data failover to is have a list of all available applications at the ready, according to Bluelock, which noted the list also should contain information on each application’s core responsibilities to determine each business unit’s needs and usage requirements. By making an inventory list of the available resources at hand, companies should (in theory) be better prepared to restore control in case of an emergency.

Following this, a more formal risk assessment and business impact analysis will provide a detailed look at the breadth and depth of the organization’s particular assets.

Next, Bluelock recommends companies determine each application’s recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) to figure out which applications must be back online first and from what point in the past data will be recovered. Doing so will help enterprises prioritize their most important applications  to minimize downtime and lost revenue, according to the company. 

Once these steps are done, companies must determine where their information is backed up to. For some companies, this will be an on-premise data center, while others will choose to back up their systems remotely to the cloud. While Bluelock is known specifically for its Cloud Recovery as a Service (RaaS) solutions (you knew a plug was coming), companies will use different solutions that best meet their organization's needs.

And finally, for a disaster recovery contingency plan to be effective, companies must plan and practice their failback process to test for any potential problems that may occur during a real emergency situation. This means transferring information over to a separate environment to confirm the effectiveness of the recovery solution. Bluelock recommends regular testing to ensure nothing changes from month to month.

Click here to check out Bluelock's recovery checklist. And then get moving.