Five common disaster planning and recovery pitfalls to avoid

According to tweet jammer Ant Stanley, the No. 1 pitfall to avoid when doing a disaster recovery (DR) test is a lack of urgency and comprehensiveness. Others SearchCIO tweet jam participants agreed on the importance of grounding disaster recovery examples in real-world scenarios:

@AndiMann@searchCIO see a lot of that unfortunately. Check box compliance is rife and leads to weak operational resilience..

— Ant Stanley (@IamStan) June 25, 2014

@IamStan @searchCIO For real. Why bother running a test if you just set it up so you must pass. Can spend that time/money better. #CIOchat

— Andi Mann (@AndiMann) June 25, 2014

Andi Mann  may have said it best. Tweet jammers suggested that simulating real disaster scenarios helps organizations grow from DR tests, and in order to successfully test disaster recovery examples, you must get the business involved:

@searchCIO A2 If it's a full test you must do 2 things 1) involve biz representatives 2) plan a test with real world examples #CIOchat

— Mark Thiele (@mthiele10) June 25, 2014

@searchCIO #CIOChat A2: Not testing at all or very infrequently, and not testing with real life conditions & scenarios.

— Robert Payne (@phillybobpayne) June 25, 2014

To prepare for a real attack, organizations and their CIOs must treat DR tests like a real attack. Other key takeaways from our #CIOChat-ters -- like planning to fail, scheduling tests in advance and documenting everything from beginning to end -- should guide your DR strategy as well.

For more disaster recovery resources, check out our CIO Essential Guide on disaster prevention and mitigation. For more on SearchCIO's #CIOChat, search the tweet jam hashtag on Twitter.

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