Disaster Recovery Interview Questions

These Disaster Recovery interview questions are perfect if you're applying for jobs requiring experience in data recovery. They can also be used by interviewers to test a candidates skill in the disaster recovery area.

Job roles typically requiring disaster recovery experience:

ITIL Manager
ITIL Consultant
Project Manager
Senior Manage
Business Manager
Data Manager
Applications Manager
IT Project Manager
IT Manager
Senior Analyst
Senior Consultant

About Disaster Recovery

As we continuously rely on IT systems to operate, store and manage important business information, the importance of planning for disaster and recovering from it has increased dramatically. Many of today's senior level IT jobs consider Disaster Recovery as an essential skill. Many technical frameworks such as ITIL and PMP include disaster recovery as an important business process which forms part of a larger enterprise IT management framework.

Disaster Recovery Interview Questions

1. A Hot Site is a term used in disaster recovery to describe a location that an organisation can move to after a disaster occurs. However, what does a Hot Site actually equate to?

2. The auditor is always required to review and determine the adequacy of the company's insurance coverage. Which two insurance types are the most common considerations in a disaster recovery audit?

3. The business impact analysis is usually performed after which other stage in creating the Business Continuity Plan?

4. The BCP usually contains several types of measures to reduce or eliminate security threats. Which types of measures are they?

5. What is the missing terminology from the sentence below:

The ___ 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.

6. Complete the missing terminology below:

The ___ 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

7. Online backup remote, online, or managed backup service is a service that provides users with an online system for backing up and storing computer files. Managed backup providers are companies that provide this type of service. Which of the following is NOT a cost factor of online backups?

a) The types of data being backed up
b) The total amount of data being backed up
c) The archive period
d) The maximum number of versions of each file to keep

8. Backing up data is a vital part of any disaster recovery plan. Which of the following is the best choice for storing the back media?

a) Store the data off-site
b) Store the data on-site but in a secure location
c) Store the data in any location, the tapes are encrypted
d) None of these

9. The emergency response team (ERT) is a group of key personnel from various departments defined during the disaster recovery planning stage. However, its quite possible that disaster can occur outside of normal working hours when key personnel are not present. What is good measure to prepare for out of hours disaster?

10. Its always hard to tell how your Disaster Recovery Plan will hold up in the event of disaster. This is especially true for newly created plans that have just been drawn up. What is a good step after creating your plan?

Answers

1. A location fully equipped to resume operations

2. Property and Casualty

3. Identify the scope of the BCP

4. Preventive, Detective and Corrective measures

5. RPO

6. RTO

7. a) The types of data being backed up

8. a) Store the data off-site

9. Create emergency contact cards for each of the ERT team

10. Simulation Testing