What is a disaster recovery plan template? An IT disaster recovery plan (DRP) template is a pre-built structure for documenting how your organization restores its technology after an outage, a ransomware attack, or the loss of a site. A good one makes you answer the hard questions first: which systems matter most, how quickly each must be back, and how much data you can afford to lose.
Our template is a free, editable Word document built for regulated and growing organizations. It follows the structure of NIST SP 800-34 Rev. 1, the contingency planning guide most US auditors recognize, and is compatible with ISO 22301. Every section has a table to fill in and short guidance on what belongs there.
What the template covers
The template has eleven sections and a regulatory mapping appendix:
- Document control. Version history, approvals, and where every copy lives, including an offline one.
- Purpose, scope and assumptions. What the plan covers, what it does not, and what it assumes will still work.
- Roles and contacts. A primary and an alternate for every role, plus your insurer, carriers, cloud providers and counsel.
- Recovery targets by system. RTO, RPO, dependencies and recovery method for each system, with a column that asks whether the method actually meets the target.
- Declaring a disaster. The trigger criteria, who has authority to declare, and an activation checklist.
- Communication plan. Who tells leadership, staff, customers, regulators and the insurer, through which channel, and when.
- Recovery procedures. A runbook block to copy for each critical system, written so someone other than the usual administrator could follow it.
- Vendor and cloud dependencies. Each provider's contracted restore time set against the RTO you need from them.
- Backup strategy. Method, frequency, retention, immutability, and the date of the last successful restore.
- Testing and maintenance. A schedule for contact reviews, restore tests, tabletop exercises and re-approval.
- Incident log and post-incident review. A running record during the event and the questions to answer afterward.
IT Disaster Recovery Plan Template
Word document, 8 pages, editable. Free. Tell us where to send it and the download starts here.
Start with recovery targets, not prose
Most plans fail because they were written top to bottom. Someone fills in the purpose statement, describes the environment, lists the team, and never gets to the part that matters: whether the business and IT agree on what "recovered" means.
Section 4 is where the work is. For every system, two numbers need a business owner's signature:
- Recovery Time Objective (RTO). The longest the system can be down before the harm is unacceptable.
- Recovery Point Objective (RPO). The most data, measured in time, you can afford to lose. A four-hour RPO means losing up to four hours of transactions.
Then check the recovery method against both. A nightly backup cannot meet a one-hour RPO. A restore that takes a day to stage cannot meet a four-hour RTO. Where the method falls short, the template asks you to record the gap and who accepted the risk. We go deeper on setting these numbers in RPO and RTO That Stand Up to Outages and Audits.
The NIST SP 800-34 process behind the template
NIST describes contingency planning as seven steps. The template gives each one a home:
| NIST step | Where it lands in the template |
|---|---|
| Develop the contingency planning policy | Sections 1 and 2 |
| Conduct the business impact analysis | Section 4 (systems, owners, tiers, RTO and RPO) |
| Identify preventive controls | Section 9 (backups) and Section 8 (vendor commitments) |
| Create contingency strategies | Section 4 (recovery method) |
| Develop the plan | Sections 3, 5, 6 and 7 |
| Plan testing, training and exercises | Section 10 |
| Plan maintenance | Sections 1, 10 and 11 |
If your organization also runs a business continuity plan, the DRP sits inside it. The continuity plan keeps the business operating; the DRP restores the technology it depends on. Our business continuity plan template for regulated organizations covers the other half, and BCP vs DRP explains how the two fit together.
Mapping the plan to your regulators
The appendix lists the requirements most of our clients face and asks where each is addressed. Common ones:
- Healthcare. The HIPAA Security Rule's contingency plan standard, 45 CFR 164.308(a)(7), requires a data backup plan, a disaster recovery plan and an emergency mode operation plan, with testing and revision addressed as well.
- Financial institutions. The FFIEC Business Continuity Management booklet sets examiners' expectations for resilience, recovery and testing.
- Cyber insurance. Policies increasingly condition coverage on backups, MFA and an incident response plan. Read yours and record the conditions in the appendix, because a claim can turn on them.
- Massachusetts organizations. If you hold personal information about Massachusetts residents, your written information security program under 201 CMR 17.00 should reference this plan. See our 201 CMR 17.00 guide.
The template is a starting point, not legal or compliance advice. Confirm the specifics with counsel and your examiners.
Five mistakes that make plans fail on the day
- The plan lives on the systems it is meant to recover. If the file share is encrypted, so is the plan. Keep an offline copy and record where it is.
- Backups have never been restored. The template asks for the date of the last successful restore, not the last successful backup.
- Contacts depend on the systems that are down. When email and the phone system fail, an out-of-band channel needs to be agreed in advance.
- The insurer hears about it last. After a cyber event, restoring before you call the carrier can complicate the claim and destroy evidence. The activation checklist puts the call first.
- Vendor contracts don't match the targets. Your four-hour RTO means little if the provider has committed to next-business-day support. Section 8 makes the comparison explicit.
Where to go after the template
- Score your current plan. The Business Continuity Readiness Assessment runs fifty-six checks across recovery targets, backups, plans, communications, vendors and testing in about ten minutes.
- Get an outside view. The Digital Presence & Technology Review looks at the systems and providers your recovery depends on and shows where the gaps are, at no charge.
- Compare recovery providers. If the plan shows you need help, Disaster Recovery Services: Clear Criteria for Regulated Environments covers what to ask.
The Deady Group is an independent technology advisor in Boston. We disclose how we are compensated before any recommendation under our Transparency Standard.
Questions, answered plainly
What should an IT disaster recovery plan include? At minimum: roles and contacts with alternates, recovery time and recovery point objectives for each system, the criteria and authority for declaring a disaster, a communication plan, step-by-step recovery procedures, vendor and cloud dependencies, the backup strategy, a testing schedule, and an incident log.
Is this disaster recovery plan template free? Yes. It's a free, editable Word document. Enter your work email on this page to download it.
What is the difference between RTO and RPO? RTO is how long a system can be down before the harm is unacceptable. RPO is how much data, measured in time, the business can afford to lose. Each system needs both, agreed with its business owner.
What framework should a disaster recovery plan follow? NIST SP 800-34 Rev. 1 is the most widely used structure in the United States and works for private organizations as well as federal systems. ISO 22301 covers the wider business continuity management system. Regulated organizations should also map the plan to their own rules, such as the HIPAA contingency plan standard or the FFIEC guidance.
How often should a disaster recovery plan be tested? Review contacts quarterly, run a restore test of your most critical systems and a tabletop exercise at least once a year, and update the plan after every test, every real incident, and every significant change to systems, vendors or staff.
