All organizations should develop a comprehensive disaster management plan for their local area networks (LANs) to ensure that they will recover as quickly and completely as possible from any natural or man-made disaster. Disasters can result from human error, acts of nature, sabotage, environmental contamination and hardware or software failure. A LAN disaster prevention and recovery plan should focus on maintaining data integrity and restoring system availability in a timely manner. The plan should be tested frequently. Personnel should be cross-trained as much as possible, systems should be adequately documented, and a written repair and maintenance plan should be developed. Managers should build a personnel plan based on job function, and implement appropriate security measures to protect data. Some businesses arrange for a backup business site, should the regular site become unusable.
 
LAN disaster planning often falls short; tape backup doesn't cover all contingencies
A few short years ago, most LANs were simple systems connecting a few PCs primarily for printer sharing and file transfer. But today, companies large and small rely on LAN-based systems for many or all of their data-processing needs. The continued operation of the LAN is intertwined with the continued operation of the organization. Many people think LAN disaster prevention and recovery means performing proper backups and recovering from fileserver disk crashes. While these things are important, they are only part of the picture--they only deal with specific types of potential disasters. LAN disaster prevention and recovery must deal with all contingencies. You must develop a comprehensive plan to avoid, as well as recover from, disasters when--not if they occur.
Disasters come in many forms, including:
 
* hardware and software failure, including disk crashes, cabling problems, and operating system and application problems;
* human error, including accidental file deletions;
* sabotage, including viruses and physical distruction;
* natural disasters, such as fire, flood, earthquake, or hurricane; and
* environmental contamination, including PCB and asbestos contamination.

Hardware or software failure, human error, and sabotage can destroy data or systems. Natural disasters and environmental contamination, however, can make your business site unavailable. The real Objectives of a LAN disaster prevention and recovery plan is to allow a business or other organization to operate without interruption---or to timely resume operation--after a disaster. Your plan needs to support this objective. 

Don't forget your offsite recovery plan. Keep it up-to-date and test it regularly.

Finally, effective written documentation is crucial to a timely recovery. You need to document your procedures and cabling system; your server, workstation, and software configurations; your directory structures; and your user and group access rights. C-BNC can help. We have written several Disaster Management and IT Business Continuity Plans. Let us work with your staff to either build your plan or refine and test your current plan.