Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan
The Hurricane Katrina disaster affected many organizations causing damage. One of the companies affected by the disaster is Direct NIC, domain registration and web hosting company in New Orleans. The disaster did not affect the main centre of the company because it was on the 11th floor, but the support team was displaced from New Orleans to Houston. The organization was not prepared for the unexpected since most of the remote centers were affected severely, and the structure damaged displacing the support team. The company lacked written business continuity and disaster recovery plan that helps to ensure business resumes operations efficiently and also recover property and save employees’ lives (Bradley, 2015). Hurricane Katrina was a disaster that triggered the Direct NIC Company to realize that they were not ready to respond to any disaster.
An employee shared the experience in a live stream, explaining how horrific the disaster was. The employee explained that they did not understand the best approach to save the organization resources and also their life safety. The company IT infrastructure was affected where the headquarters did not access the information from the remote locations due to the disaster. The organization’s operation affected because the organization relies on the data on the cloud. The business operations halted due to the displacement of employees from their remote locations where they lacked alternative sites to offer their services (Bradley, 2015). The computers and other infrastructure also damaged, and the company did not have alternatives to restore the business immediately.
The organization operations halted because of poor development and implementation of business continuity and disaster recovery plan. The organization would have developed a written business continuity plan (BCP) and disaster recovery plans (DRP) that is appropriate in restoring business operations after a disaster. The organization management should conduct training on the use of the BCP and DRP and also refresh the existing policies to ensure all employees are updated. The employees also need plans in an online form to access anytime when a disaster occurred, and they should know the best actions to take (Banipal, 2016). The organization should consider having a secondary location that employees should move to and ensures operations continue immediately after a disaster. It is also necessary for Direct NIC to have a cloud-based infrastructure by choosing the best vendor. The cloud-based infrastructure protects the data and applications from cyber-attacks and even natural disasters like the Hurricane Katrina disaster that ensure operations resumes immediately after an attack making smooth functioning support from the remote locations. The organization should also consider the status of the remote areas to avoid the vulnerabilities associated with attacks.