Disaster Recovery Plan Requirements

This question asks about your plan for getting systems back online after a major incident—like a data center fire, cyberattack, or natural disaster. It's your emergency playbook that details who does what, in what order, to restore service. The question specifically wants to know if someone owns this plan and if you actually practice it yearly, not just have it sitting on a shelf.

Without a tested disaster recovery plan, a major incident could mean days or weeks of downtime, potentially destroying your business and your customers' trust. Enterprise customers need assurance that their critical operations won't fail if you fail. A solid, tested DRP can be the difference between a 4-hour recovery and a 4-day recovery, potentially saving millions in lost revenue and preventing customer churn.

The most common mistake is having a plan that's never tested—when disaster strikes, you discover it doesn't actually work. Companies also often assign ownership to IT without involving other departments, missing critical business context about what needs to be recovered first.