Its never an easy task starting your first disaster recovery plan. Most companies will opt for a disaster recovery expert or try to find a disaster recovery service to suit their needs. However, you'd be surprised how much is just down to common sense and planning. The internet offers many starting points for getting your disaster recovery plan off the ground. You can download free disaster recovery plans from reputable sites with some sites also offering templates for other areas such as BIA, ERT, checklists and simulation tests.

Falling neatly alongside disaster recovery is business continuity planning. Keeping your business alive in the event of disaster is a major consideration for both small and large corporations. Whilst most recovery plans are never put into affect, they can save millions in lost time and revenue. Hot sites provide the means to switch over in the event of disaster, whilst backups and offsite storage provide secure copies of all your business data. Getting everything to sit together takes time and a lot of patience!

So, how well do you really know disaster recovery and its importance in the workplace? Have you considered off-site backup storage, uninterrupted powers supplies or emergency response teams? If you haven't then take our test straight away to learn more about disaster recovery and the different ways to protect your business!

We've included questions for the following areas:

Business continuity planning Disaster recovery planning is a subset of a larger process known as business continuity planning and should include planning for resumption of applications, data, hardware, communications (such as networking) and other IT infrastructure

Recovery Point Objective The Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is the point in time to which you must recover data as defined by your organization. This is generally a definition of what an organization determines is an "acceptable loss" in a disaster situation

Backup Site A backup site is a location where an organization can easily relocate following a disaster, such as fire, flood, terrorist threat or other disruptive event

Cold Sites A cold site is the most inexpensive type of backup site for an organization to operate. It does not include backed up copies of data and information from the original location of the organization, nor does it include hardware already set up

Hot Sites A hot site is a duplicate of the original site of the organization, with full computer systems as well as near-complete backups of user data

Warm Sites A warm site is, quite logically, a compromise between hot and cold. These sites will have hardware and connectivity already established, though on a smaller scale than the original production site or even a hot site

Continuous data protection Continuous data protection (CDP), also called continuous backup or real-time backup, refers to backup of computer data by automatically saving a copy of every change made to that data, essentially capturing every version of the data that the user saves

Secure Virtual Office A Secure Virtual Office is a software environment which allows people to securely access and run applications on a remote server from an Internet connection, as if the application and data was on their own desktop machine

Data backup with no hot site Businesses that use Tier 1 continuity solutions back up their data and send these backups to an off-site storage facility. The method of transporting these backups is often referred to as "PTAM" - the "Pick-up Truck Access Method

Point-in-time copies Tier 4 solutions are used by businesses that require both greater data currency and faster recovery than users of lower tiers. Rather than relying largely on shipping tape, as is common on the lower tiers, Tier 4 solutions begin to incorporate more disk based solutions

Virtual tape library - VTL A virtual tape library (VTL) is a data storage virtualization technology used typically for backup and recovery purposes. A VTL presents a storage component (usually hard disk storage) as tape libraries or tape drives for use with existing backup software.

Recovery Time Objective The Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is the duration of time and a service level within which a business process must be restored after a disaster (or disruption) in order to avoid unacceptable consequences associated with a break in business continuity

Business continuity plan A BCP includes planning for non-IT related aspects such as key personnel, facilities, crisis communication and reputation protection, and should refer to the disaster recovery plan (DRP) for IT related infrastructure recovery / continuity

Business Impact Analysis Business impact analysis is study and assessment of financial losses to institution resulting from destructive event as unavailability of important business services

..and many more!

Our test is presented in our unique multiple choice simulator that pulls random questions from a pool of hundreds! Simply read the disaster recovery question to understand the topic or area being asked, then select the appropriate choice from the radio buttons underneath. You'll be surprised how much you didn't know about disaster recovery. The test simulator informs you of right or wrong answers as you progress, it even gives you explanations on answers and helps you to understand more about disaster recovery as you progress. There are 15 random questions per test, and you are free to take the simulator as many times as you wish. Please bookmark this page, as we continue to add new questions on a regular basis. Always stay ahead of the curve, use Accelerated Ideas as you number one choice for the latest tech advice.