RBZane Advisory Group developed a proprietary “Recovery Requirements Definition” (RRD) offering. This unique and efficient approach enables our consultants to identify all the key elements required for an effective Business Continuity program. Before specific recovery solutions can be defined for the data center infrastructure and/or end user work area environments, our clients must first determine how critical each business function is to the organization in the event of a disaster occurrence. Criticality is usually based on the impact to the organization, should there be a significant business interruption impacting IT and/or business functions.

Once the business requirements are prioritized, recovery strategies are developed to prevent and/or mitigate losses. Having completed a level of analysis appropriate for each client, Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) are identified and become the key to defining the "right" solutions to enable the client to implement a cost effective recovery program. A significant difference in our approach versus more lengthy and costly Business Impact Analysis (BIA) is that our focus recognizes the specific requirements of each organization/department and scales the project to meet those specific needs.

Depending on the specific engagement scope, our fees for determining IT & Business application priorities, developing an appropriate recovery strategy and solution are dependant on the number of business applications, client locations, and the technology environment. We will spend a minimum of 8-10 days on site and complete the Statement of Work (SOW) deliverables over an elapsed time of 8-10 weeks, depending on the client’s availability and schedules.

In order to properly define our clients' recovery requirements and to establish the correct approach for developing a recovery plan, an analysis of current applications and business processes is necessary. To expedite the initial definition stage and properly identify the recovery requirements, RBZane will provide a focused consulting project that will detail the current environment from a recovery requirements perspective. We will create an initial recovery strategy identifying critical business and operations systems with a definition of their RTO's and RPO's. We will meet with key personnel (technical, operations, applications representatives; and appropriate business managers) to develop an accurate picture of critical applications and required infrastructure. Appropriate recovery tiers will be defined and approved by client for classification of identified applications including application interdependencies. It is not mandatory for us to meet with the users, but that is often helpful.  

The following Deliverables will be provided from the RRD consulting engagement:

• Development of a list of critical applications, both operational and business
• Identification of application dependencies from other applications
• Development of: 
  • Initial Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) for all the applications identified
  • Initial inventory of current IT infrastructure technologies and mapping them to the applications they support
  • Preliminary classification of applications in recovery tiers (RPO and RTO)
  • Initial recovery strategy(s) and associated architecture based on analysis of initial data gathered
• Review of current data backup and offsite storage practices as it relates to recovery
• Development of initial cost estimates for recovery elements identified in the strategy

ADDITIONAL BUSINESS CONTINUITY / DISASTER RECOVERY SERVICES

PROJECT ENGAGEMENT PHASE

Discover Planning Detailed Design Implementation

BC/DR Program Assessment – Defines the current recovery capabilities and gaps through a review of current management processes around continuity, recovery, and availability

Business Impact Analysis (BIA) – creates the appropriate level of detail required by the client to assess the impact to the business in the event of loss of critical services. Provides an analysis of critical processes and IT applications supporting those vital services along with identification of recovery times and prioritization of dependencies on information availability, infrastructure, network and operational requirements

IT Infrastructure Disaster Recovery Strategy Development – Using input from the BIA, the available solutions are identified for each tier of recovery requirements and recommendations made to help management determine what level of protection is appropriate for critical IT business processes

Business Continuity Strategy Development – Expanding the strategy beyond the IT requirements, the BCSD initiative will develop requirements and solutions to address the critical business process environments outside IT and develop solutions in the event of a business interruption impacting their location

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan Development – Creation of plans for IT recovery, individual application recovery, and/or business process recovery

Recovery Plan Development Tools – Creation or acquisition of the appropriate toolset for each client to be used for development and ongoing maintenance of the recovery plans

Data Center and Workplace Risk Assessment –Provides identification of the risks posing the greatest threats to data center and workplace assets, operation and business functions, along with recommendations for risk minimization of identified exposures.