IT DR Planning

Be ready to recover.

IT failure is inevitable. Recovery isn’t.

Your IT systems are the backbone of your business. But disruptions – from cyber attacks to hardware failure, human error or natural disasters – are inevitable.  

The question is: will you be ready to recover?  

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IT Disaster Recovery is about more than your data protection technology.

Backups alone won’t recover your critical IT services.

From planning to proven recovery

Databarracks’ IT DR Planning helps you build a recovery process shaped around your businesstested with your teams and proven to perform when disruption strikes. 

How we do it

Step 1

IT DR Assessment

Assess current IT recovery capability across people, process, technology and suppliers. Identify recovery gaps and priorities.

Step 2

IT DR Documentation

Develop or enhance your IT DR documentation – including recovery plans, policies, testing programmes and technical runbooks.

Step 3

IT DR Exercises and workshops

Run scenario-based exercises and recovery workshops to test recovery plans and processes, prepare teams and improve coordination across the business.

IT DR Assessment

Our IT DR Assessment gives you a clear view of your current recovery capability.  

We review your BIA, existing DR documentation and architecture – defining across your critical services:  

  • RTO (Recovery Time Objective): The target time to restore a system or service after a disruption
  • RPO (Recovery Point Objective): The point in time to which systems must be restored to avoid unacceptable data loss
  • MTPoD (Maximum Tolerable Period of Disruption): The maximum time a business process can be disrupted before causing severe or irrecoverable harm to your organisation 

 We help you identify recovery gaps and priorities, so your plans reflect business needs and can stand up to board and regulatory scrutiny. 

IT DR Documentation

Recovery depends on having the right plans, policies and runbooks in place – and ready to use. We help you develop the clear, practical documentation your teams need to recover critical IT services, including: 

  • IT Business Continuity Plan 
  • IT Major Incident Management Plan 
  • Service Continuity Management Policy 
  • IT DR Testing Programme 
  • Technical runbooks 

Built through workshops with your teams, based on best practice and shaped around your business and systems – your IT DR documentation becomes a practical foundation for real-world recovery. 

IT DR Exercises and Workshops

Scenario-based exercises build leadership readiness, strengthen team coordination and test recovery processes under realistic conditions. 

Our Recovery Workshops give your IT teams a controlled environment to walk through recovery procedures in detail – reviewing runbooks, identifying gaps and uncovering hidden dependencies – so they’re fully prepared ahead of full DR tests or live incidents. 

After each exercise or workshop, we provide a clear report with findings and actionable recommendations. 

Why IT DR Planning matters

When your business depends on IT, your recovery capability can’t be left to chance.

It needs to be planned, tested and proven – so your teams know exactly how to restore critical services when disruption strikes.

Reduce Downtime

Restore essential IT services faster, with tested plans and clear recovery priorities.

Improve coordination

Align leadership and IT teams so recovery is a coordinated effort, not an isolated IT task.

Prove you can recover

Meet compliance requirements and prove recoverability to customers, regulators and insurers.

National Cyber Security Centre Assured Cyber Incident Exercise Provider

Cyber Incident Exercising with Databarracks' PlanB

Our Cyber Incident Exercising is underpinned by the expertise of Databarracks’ PlanB, an NCSC Assured Cyber Incident Exercise Provider.

We deliver Cyber Incident Exercises – including tabletop exercises, SIMEX (Simulation Exercises) and wargames – that go far beyond traditional testing and exercising to build real-world cyber readiness across leadership, Crisis, Cyber, IT and supplier teams.

What our customers say

Next
Fera Logo
Databarracks
Ultrapharm The Gluten Free Bakers
Databarracks
Royal Albert Hall
Databarracks
Department for Science, Innovation & Technology
Databarracks
Westcoast
Armstrong Watson
GTR
Next
Fera Logo
Databarracks
Ultrapharm The Gluten Free Bakers
Databarracks
Royal Albert Hall
Databarracks
Department for Science, Innovation & Technology
Databarracks
Westcoast
Armstrong Watson
GTR

IT DR Planning FAQs

  • IT DR Planning (IT Disaster Recovery Planning) is the process of building and testing your ability to recover IT systems and data after disruption.

  • IT DR Planning supports Business Continuity by ensuring the IT services that underpin critical business activities can be restored quickly. The two should be tightly integrated.

  • At least annually – with a combination of tabletop exercises, recovery workshops and full recovery tests where feasible.

Be ready to recover

Build IT DR capability that gives your board, your customers and your regulators confidence. We’ll help you plan, test and prove your ability to recover. 

Contact us