TABLE OF CONTENTS O to be self-balanced for contingencies, to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do.
Walt Whitman
The Contingency Plan is one of the most important documents in the C&A package. You may need to use it someday. IT systems and networks are vulnerable to disruptions due to a variety of reasons power outages, natural disasters, and terrorist attacks to name a few. The nature of unprecedented disruptions can create confusion, and often predisposes an otherwise competent IT staff toward less efficient practices. Confusion and inefficiency create risk. Contingency planning and testing enable you to eliminate some of that risk.
You ll never be able to plan for all the contingencies that may come your way. That being said, you still need to plan for some of them. How many? A Contingency Plan (sometimes referred to as an IT Contingency Plan) should be described in general terms in order to cover as many adverse situations as necessary. Some of the objectives of your Contingency Plan should be to:
Maximize the effectiveness of contingency operations through an established plan
Provide a road map of actions for continuing operations
Reduce the complexity of the recovery effort
Minimize loss of, and damage to, assets
Identify resources to be used in the recovery operations
Facilitate the coordination of recovery tasks
Establish management succession and escalation procedures
Minimize the duration of the disruption
Assign responsibilities to designated personnel
Provide guidance in recovering operations
Identify an alternate site
