DRP

How it works

• Lists what has to come back first, in order.
• Names who does what, who to call and where the passwords and backups are.
• Sets how long each system can be down and how much data you can afford to lose.
• Gets tested, because an untried plan is a guess.

What can go wrong (example scenario)

A five-person law firm had backups. When ransomware hit, nobody knew the restore password, the vendor contact had left, and the partners argued for two days about whether to pay. The restore itself took four hours once someone finally found the instructions.

How WILDCARD handles it

Unified Backups covers cloud and computer backups so there is something to restore. A written recovery plan, priorities and a tested restore are vCIO outputs, and a business review puts them on the table.

• A dental office needs the practice management system back within four hours, with patient charts intact.
• A law firm needs email and the document system restored in priority order before accounting.
• A contractor needs drawings and the quoting spreadsheet within a day, and can wait on the rest.

Example scenario: A small physiotherapy clinic ran a restore drill on a quiet Friday. The backup worked, but the restore took seven hours because the instructions were out of date. They rewrote the steps, fixed the order, and the next drill took ninety minutes. When a drive actually failed a year later, they were open the next morning.

A question owners ask

We have backups. Do we really need a plan?

The backup is the acorn. The plan is knowing where it is and digging it up fast. A one-page plan with priorities and a tested restore is enough for most small businesses.