Re: Ideas on Development of Disaster Recovery Procedures

["Shane Herring" <herrings -at- bigbutton -dot- com -dot- au>]

Hi Lyse.

David and Geoff bring some valuable info.  The hardest part is you
coordinating.

To add to the other two comments I think one important aspect has been
missed.  Risk/threat analysis.  You need to know what the weak points are
and the potential threats (users, power company, it staff).  By doing this
you can prioritise and gain a bigger picture.  It will get bigger. 
Procedures will minimise the risks and threats.  Items such as change
control, security policies are an example.

Below is a simplistic view but I hope it will help.

I start from the source and work back.  For example.

1. Risk - Data corruption.
Response - Restore database
Action - Instructions to restore database
Policy - maintenance schedule

2. Risk - OS failure
Response - Rebuild OS
Action - Instructions to reinstall OS and restore DB to operating status
Policy - No untested updates.  Change logs.

3. Risk - Hardware failure
Response - Replace hardware (HDD, power supply)
Action - Instruction to replace hardware.
Policy - Hot spares.

4. Risk - Switch failure
5. Risk - Internal Power failure
6. Risk - Telco failure

and it goes on.  As I said, a simplistic view but it's an approach that
worked for me in my last job.  It helped me identify modules and write to
those modules.

HTHs
Cheers
Shane

--------- Original Message --------
From: Lyse Tremblay <tremblay -dot- lyse -at- tremblayprudly -dot- com>
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Subject: Ideas on Development of Disaster Recovery Procedures
Date: Fri 06/16/06 08:22 PM

>
>
> Hi all,
>
> I am fairly new as a technical writer. I am responsible for coordinating
> the development and creation of disaster recovery procedures for various
> technological areas for the business continuity project for which I am the
> Project Coordinator.
>
> Basically, I see these as being more actionable steps/procedures that can
> sometimes performed in parallel but most often performed sequentially by
> the various cross-functional responsible SME in each functional area.
>
> For example: database server fails and not only does the server needs to
> be recovered but the databases and data that resided on that server would
> also need to be recovered and synchronized. I see that there would be a
> series of steps performed by each SME that would need to happen in a
> particular sequence.  (In a full resilient environment the procedures
> would include procedural steps to failover to another server until the one
> that failed can be recovered. That is the environment we are setting up
> and writing procedures for.) My goal is to ensure standardized formatting
> and content of these procedures. I am researching through this group what
> would be the best way to write and present these in a standardized way?
>
> Any thoughts you may have would be greatly appreciated.
>
>     PS.  I only have Word, at this time, to work with. Looking at
> FrameMaker
>     with DITA. I have a little experience with XML.
>
> Thanks,
> Lyse
>
>
>
>
>
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