IT Disaster Recovery Planning For Dummies®

Chapter 5. Planning User Recovery

People are an essential part of all critical business processes. Even highly-automated business processes would soon break down without human involvement, guidance, and intervention.

Recovering users means recovering their workstations and their ability to communicate with people inside and outside of their organization. You have to analyze a lot of details to understand the role of end users' workstations and communications needs in critical business processes.

In this chapter, I discuss various aspects of recovering user workstations, including

• Web terminals (primarily used just as a Web browser)

• Client-side applications and tools

• Access to centrally located information

In this chapter, I also discuss recovering users' communication needs, including

• Voice communications

• E-mail

• Fax and instant messaging (IM)

Recovering these capabilities requires recovery plans that quickly restore users' ability to perform their tasks and support critical business processes. This chapter focuses on identifying important issues. When you know these issues, you can help develop the appropriate recovery activities.

In the event that the facilities where your employees work are also damaged in a disaster, those facilities also require recovery efforts. You can read about activities related to recovering facilities and work centers in Chapter 6.

Managing and Recovering End-User Computing

People play a vital role in the operation of business processes. Increasingly, the people portion ...