Disaster Recovery

COMPUTER SYSTEM VALIDATION (CSV) SCADA AND PLC's
1

I am interested in the groups views on Disaster Recovery. A company
purchases the service of using a equipment at a vendor’s site because
their’s could be affected by a disaster. On an annual basis, the
company’s business application software is loaded on the vendor’s
equipment. Tests are performed to verify that the software was loaded
properly. However, the tests are not documented. The goal is to get
the business running ASAP.

Is an IQ necessary? If so, when is an IQ necessary?

  • During the first test of the site’s equipment? or
  • Every time an annual test is performed? or
  • Only when the site is used for an actual disaster?

What are other companies doing for Disaster Recovery and Business
Continuity?

While the computer is being set up, the business team is processing
business transactions manually. After the computer is set up, does a
business team need to perform OQ and PQ validation of business
processes? If so, can this be limited to a test of major business
transactions only. The
software code has not changed so I’m not sure these qualifications are
needed.

Thanks for your anticipated comments.

2

Hello Loretta,

If you can demonstrate that your Disaster Recovery follows a procedure then
you do not need to retest that procedure every time it is used.

Presumably the procedure would have been designed and tested initially � but
you might wish to verify it. Like any other procedure, you would then need
to ensure that people who are intended to follow it have been trained in it,
and you would probably want to keep training records to verify that is the
case.