Disaster Recovery Plan Template
A practical DR plan template for IT systems — covering backup restoration, failover procedures, and recovery time objectives.
What Is a Disaster Recovery Plan?
A Disaster Recovery (DR) Plan is a subset of your Business Continuity Plan that focuses specifically on restoring IT systems and data after a catastrophic event. While the BCP covers the entire business, the DR plan covers: servers, networks, applications, data, and communications infrastructure.
Recovery Objectives
Define RTO (Recovery Time Objective) and RPO (Recovery Point Objective) for each critical system:
| System | RTO (Max downtime) | RPO (Max data loss) |
|---|---|---|
| Email & Collaboration | 2 hours | 15 minutes |
| Helpdesk & Ticketing | 4 hours | 1 hour |
| CRM & Customer Data | 4 hours | 1 hour |
| Finance & Accounting | 8 hours | 4 hours |
| File Servers | 8 hours | 24 hours |
| HRMS & Payroll | 24 hours | 24 hours |
Backup & Recovery Procedures
For each system, document: where backups are stored (on-site, off-site, cloud), how to initiate a restore (which console, which commands, which scripts), step-by-step restoration procedure with screenshots or command references, verification steps to confirm the system is operational after restore, and rollback plan if the restore fails or creates new issues.
DR Site / Failover Configuration
If you maintain a secondary site or cloud failover: document the failover trigger conditions (e.g., primary site unreachable for >15 minutes), manual or automatic failover procedure, DNS or routing changes needed to redirect traffic to the secondary site, and failback procedure to return to the primary site after the incident.
Testing Schedule
Tabletop DR test quarterly — walk through the plan with the response team, identify gaps, and update procedures. Partial DR test biannually — restore a single non-critical system from backups and verify functionality. Full DR test annually — simulate a complete site failure, fail over to secondary site, run operations for 24 hours, and fail back.
Plan Maintenance
The DR plan is reviewed and updated after any major infrastructure change (new server, cloud migration, network redesign), after any real disaster event (document what worked and what didn't), and at least annually even if nothing changes. Store the DR plan in at least two locations — one on-site and one off-site (or cloud) — so it is accessible even if the office is inaccessible.
Put this into practice with workro desk.