Free disaster recovery planning templates
Download our free templates today to help create the best disaster recovery plan for your business.
When it comes to creating and documenting business continuity (BC) and disaster recovery (DR) plans, it's necessary to expend a significant amount of time and effort. One potential way to ease this burden is to use disaster recovery or business continuity planning templates to help guide you through this process, which provide ready-made formats, layouts and containers for the various types of information you'll need to assemble and record during that process.
Disaster recovery templates can help with everything from preparing an IT risk assessment -- to mapping out the details needed in disaster recovery plans, such as key contacts information, step-by-step service resumption activities, delivery and recovery from off-site data backups and more.
We've compiled our best resources on disaster recovery and business continuity templates to help make your disaster recovery planning process easier. Bookmark this page, as we will update it often with new information.
NETWORK DISASTER RECOVERY PLAN TEMPLATE
In this article and associated network disaster recovery plan template, we’ll examine the issues that should be addressed when preparing and deploying a network disaster recovery plan for voice and data communications.
BUSINESS IMPACT ANALYSIS QUESTIONNARIE TEMPLATE
In this tutorial on business impact analysis questionnaires, you'll learn why they are a key factor in the BIA process, what types of questions you should include and how many, and, finally, we've provided a business impact analysis questionnaire template to help you get started.
SERVICE-LEVEL AGREEMENT TEMPLATE
In this article, we'll examine the elements of an service-level agreement for BC/DR activities and also provide you with a free service- level agreement template to help you get started.
BUSINESS CONTINUITY POLICY TEMPLATE
This article and our free, downloadable business continuity policy template will provide a useful starting point for preparing a business continuity policy. Read our tips and then download the policy template.
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT PLAN TEMPLATE
In this tutorial, we'll examine what's needed to prepare an emergency management plan that addresses not only the initial incident response but also the longer term support needed to manage the emergency to a suitable conclusion. Read our guide on emergency management planning below, and then download our free emergency management plan template to get started.
DR PLANNING FOR YOUR HELP DESK: A HELP DESK TEMPLATE
In this article and associated help desk template, we'll examine the issues that should be addressed when preparing and deploying a disaster recovery plan for a help desk. Click here to download our free help desk template.
INCIDENT RESPONSE PLAN TEMPLATE
It's important to have an incident response plan in addition to your regular disaster recovery plan. Incidents are situations that could turn into a disaster if not handled properly, and are often the first step in detecting a disaster. When an out-of-normal condition in your organization occurs, it must be acknowledged as quickly as possible, assessed as to its nature and severity, and some sort of response initiated. Click here to download our free incident response plan template.
SAMPLE BUSINESS CONTINUITY TEMPLATE FOR SMBS
For many small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), business continuity planning activities pose a formidable challenge, especially from the perspectives of time, money and resources. We've tried to simplify this process for SMBs in this guide and free template. Click here to download our free sample business continuity template.
VOICE COMMUNICATIONS DISASTER RECOVERY TEMPLATE
In this guide, you'll learn how to keep your voice communications up and running in the event of a disaster, how to write a voice over IP (VoIP) disaster recovery plan, and then you can download our free template and get started. Click here to download our free voice communications disaster recovery template.
EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS PLAN TEMPLATE
The business continuity management process contains several important steps. Communicating information during and following a disaster to relevant parties is a key priority. In this guide, we will examine an emergency communications plan for business continuity planners, and then you can download a template to help you with your emergency communications planning that can be adapted to a variety of incidents. Click here to download our free emergency communications plan template.
DATA CENTER DISASTER RECOVERY PLAN TEMPLATE
A data center disaster recovery plan focuses exclusively on a data center facility and its infrastructure, e.g., physical location, construction, security, power sources, and environmental systems. In this guide on data center disaster recovery planning, learn about the most important ingredients in a successful data center DR plan, who should be involved in the planning process, and how to get started. Click here to download our free data center disaster recovery template.
DISASTER RECOVERY TEMPLATE FOR ASSESSING YOUR DISASTER RECOVERY SITE
A key activity in business continuity (BC) and disaster recovery (DR) planning is a disaster recovery facilities assessment. This physical site assessment goes through an extensive checklist of building elements, such as power and heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), and identifies situations in which a risk may be present.
In this guide on disaster recovery facilities, learn what should be covered in a disaster recovery facilities assessment, how to perform one and then download our free disaster recovery template to help you conduct a physical site assessment. You'll also learn what areas should be covered in an assessment, and key building
In this guide on risk assessments in disaster recovery planning, learn how to get started with a risk assessment; how to prepare a risk assessment; and natural vs. man-made hazards in the risk assessment process. Read our guide, and then download our free risk assessment template.
DISASTER RECOVERY TEMPLATE FOR YOUR BUDGET
To help make your budgeting process easier, SearchDisasterRecovery.com has provided a free downloadable disaster recovery template that will help you get started with your budget. Download our disaster recovery template for your budget.
Pandemic plans differ slightly from traditional disaster recovery and business continuity plans in that they focus more on people and somewhat less on technology. Each type of plan provides a structured approach for responding to situations that threaten an organization's ability to sustain operations. Considering the health threat to employees from by a pandemic, a carefully designed pandemic recovery plan can help the firm remain viable, even with a reduction of staff. This article and SearchDisasterRecovery.com's free downloadable pandemic planning template provide an effective starting point.
Download our free pandemic recovery template.
USING DR AND BC TEMPLATES
As you use disaster recovery and business continuity planning templates, don't forget to think outside the box. That is, you'll want to make sure you've covered everything that's relevant to your organization's disaster recovery or business continuity efforts, rather than just following somebody's blueprint unthinkingly. That's why a good shakedown from a recovery practice drill is so important to vetting all such plans, whether they derive from a template or not.
In this article, learn about the pros and cons of using disaster recovery and business continuity templates.
An information technology disaster recovery plan provides a structured approach for responding to unplanned incidents that threaten an IT infrastructure, which includes hardware, software, networks, processes and people. Protecting your firm's investment in its technology infrastructure, and protecting your firm's ability to conduct business are the key reasons for implementing an IT disaster recovery plan. SearchDisasterRecovery.com's free downloadable IT disaster recovery template will help facilitate the initiation and completion of an IT DR plan.
Read our guide and download our free IT disaster recovery plan template.
BUSINESS CONTINUITY AND DISASTER RECOVERY TESTING TEMPLATES
Business continuity and disaster recovery plans are useless until you test them. Fortunately, many types of disaster recovery tests are possible, ranging from simple to very complex. The key to business continuity testing success is to incorporate testing as part of the overall business continuity/disaster recovery management process.
But testing can be a major challenge to many organizations. They require management support, time for preparation and execution, funding, careful planning and a structured process from pre-test through test and post-test evaluation.
SearchDisasterRecovery.com has created a free business continuity testing template and guide to show you how to build and execute your test
A BUSINESS IMPACT ANALYSIS TEMPLATE
A business impact analysis is a key part of the business continuity process that analyzes mission-critical business functions, and identifies and quantifies the impact a loss of those functions (e.g., operational, financial) may have on the organization.
SearchDisasterRecovery.com has created a free downloadable business impact analysis template to assist you in your business continuity planning. Download and print out our BIA template, and step-by-step guide to create a successful business impact analysis.
SMALL BUSINESS DISASTER RECOVERY PLANNING TEMPLATE
To make the disaster recovery planning process easier, we've collected our top five resources on business continuity planning for SMBs, starting with a free, downloadable business continuity plan template. Explore our resources on small business disaster recovery planning. Click here to download our free small business disaster recovery plan template.
