In this age where data is king and system uptime is critical, IT disaster recovery is a cornerstone of business resilience. Disaster recovery involves a set of policies, tools, and procedures to enable the recovery or continuation of vital technology infrastructure and systems following a natural or human-induced disaster.

1. Understand Your Risk Profile: Every organization should start by conducting a thorough risk assessment. This involves identifying potential threats, such as natural disasters, cyber-attacks, hardware failure, or power outages, and evaluating how these could impact operations.

2. Develop a Robust Recovery Plan: A comprehensive disaster recovery plan should outline the steps required to restore IT operations quickly and effectively following an incident. This plan should detail essential elements such as response strategies, backup solutions, recovery site locations, and communication protocols.

3. Keep Your Backup Strategy Current: Effective backup strategies are critical. Regularly back up data using the 3-2-1 rule: keep three copies of your data on two different media with one located offsite.

4. Test Your Disaster Recovery Plan: Testing is crucial to ensure that your plan works under pressure. Conduct regular mock disaster scenarios to iron out any kinks and ensure that staff are familiar with their roles in the recovery process.

5. Secure Your Infrastructure: Safeguarding your IT environment from potential breaches can reduce the risk of disasters resulting from cyber-attacks. This means implementing strong security measures like firewalls, antivirus software, intrusion detection systems, and regular security audits.

6. Train Your Personnel: Employees should be aware of the disaster recovery plan and their specific responsibilities during an incident. Frequent training sessions can help prepare staff for executing the plan effectively.

7. Update and Adapt Your Plan: As your organization grows and technology evolves, so should your disaster recovery plan. Regularly review and update it to accommodate new systems, processes, or threats.

8. Partner with Reliable Vendors: Depend on reputable vendors for critical services like cloud storage or SaaS (Software as a Service) products. Ensure they have robust disaster recovery protocols in place which align with your own.

Businesses that invest in solid IT disaster recovery practices can face unexpected disruptions with confidence and maintain continuity even under adverse circumstances. Preparation may require time and resources, but the cost of being unprepared can be far greater in terms of lost data, revenue, customer trust, and business viability.