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Chapter 2: Disaster RecoveryPlanning for a DisasterThe following costs are involved with downtimes: The length of time that R/3 is down.The longer the system is down, the longer the catch-up period when it is brought backup. The transactions from the alternate processes that were in place during the disasterhave to be applied to the system to make it current. This situation is more critical in ahigh-volume environment. A downed system is more expensive during the business day when business activitywould stop than at the end of the business day when everyone has gone home. When customers cannot be serviced or supported, they may be lost to a competitor.The duration of acceptable downtime depends on the company and the nature of itsbusiness.Unless you test your recovery procedure, the recovery time is only an estimate, or worse, aguess. Different disaster scenarios have different recovery times, which are based on whatneeds to be done to become operational again.The time to recover must be matched to the business requirements. If this time is greaterthan the business requirements, the mismatch needs to be communicated to the appropriatemanagers or executives.Resolving this mismatch involves: Investing in equipment, processes, and facilities to reduce the recovery time. Changing the business requirements to accept the longer recovery time and acceptingthe consequences.An extreme (but possible) example: A company cannot afford the cost and lost revenue forthe month it would take one person to recover the system. During that time, the competitionwould take away customers, payment would be due to vendors, and bills would not becollected. In this situation, senior management needs to allocate resources to reduce therecovery time to an acceptable level.There are four key roles in a recovery group. The number of employees performing theseroles will vary depending on your company size. In a smaller company, for example, therecovery manager and the communication liaison could be the same person. Titles and taskswill probably differ based on your company’s needs.We defined the following key roles: Recovery managerManages the entire technical recovery. All recovery activities and issues should becoordinated through this person. Communication liaisonHandles user phone calls and keeps top management updated with the recovery status.One person handling all phone calls allows the group doing the technical recovery toproceed without interruptions.2–6Release 4.6 A/B