Critical Dimensions of Disaster Recovery Planning

Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP) emerged in the 1970s, during the era of electronic data processing when mainframe systems were used to crunch data and provide reports for business analysis. The importance of DRP is undeniable especially after the 911 terrorism attack and many natural disasters experienced by many countries; much effort has then poured in to maintain a set of workable DRP. However, though high investment is allocated for information technology and DRP, there are still IT service outages interrupted the business, crippled the operations and impacted the overall organization long term strategic plan. Questions arose on why DRP could not ensure an uninterrupted IT service environment. This paper aims to study the critical dimensions impacting the development and maintenance of DRP process, specifically to understand the dimensions that contribute to a successful DRP that aims to minimize the impacts of IT service outages. This study used a theoretical model, technology-organization-environment framework (TOE) to explore the adoption of DRP process in financial institutions in Malaysia. Following IT service management concept, individual components that comprise of trading partner readiness, staff competency, roles and responsibilities were included in the study. This study evidenced that 8 dimensions were critical for the implementation of DRP, in which 2 of 3 individual components being studied were part of the lists. These 8 dimensions could be used as guidance for future successful DRP rollout and its ongoing maintenance activities; with the ultimate objective to minimize outage duration of IT services that support critical business.