IT North Continuity pack · Mesabi Outfitters

Recovery

Disaster Recovery Plan

How Mesabi Outfitters and IT North restore critical IT after a serious outage— hardware failure, ransomware, fire, or site loss. This plan reduces decision-making under stress.

Doc / pack version 2026.1 Last reviewed: 2026-03-12 Primary site: 525 W Howard St, Hibbing, MN (sample)

Plan objectives

• Restore critical systems to agreed RPO/RTO targets
• Keep backup and standby paths reliable and tested
• Give leadership a clear call tree and decision points
• Capture what happened for insurance and after-action review

Scope

Primary location: 525 W Howard St, Hibbing, MN (sample). Covered applications and data are listed in the criticality table below (plus Microsoft 365 where in use).

1. Applications & data criticality

Default targets unless a row says otherwise: RPO One business day · RTO Within 24 hours.

2. Data backup plan

Image-based backup for MESABI-DC1 with local appliance + cloud copy; Microsoft 365 SaaS backup 3× daily.
IT North monitors job health and schedules restore verification (tracked on Continuity).

Backup maintenance

• IT North monitors managed backup job health and investigates failures.
• Restore / boot verification and backup health reviews follow the Continuity cadence in the portal (Help Desk tickets open when due).
• Proof (screenshots, notes) is stored in portal Documents and linked from Continuity.

3. Disaster recovery team

4. Recovery options

Option A — Temporary cloud / appliance virtualization

Bring systems up quickly off-site or on the backup appliance, then plan a failback to repaired/replaced hardware later.

Option B — Restore to repaired or replacement hardware

Longer initial recovery, but often one cutover. Requires working hardware and a tested restore path.

The business lead and IT North choose the option based on damage, spare hardware, and insurance timelines.

5. When to invoke this plan

• Prolonged outage of a High-priority system beyond normal break/fix response
• Confirmed ransomware or destructive malware
• Site inaccessible (fire, flood, extended power/network loss)
• Primary backup repository failure with risk to RPO
• System failure, data corruption, vandalism, or other emergencies that threaten critical IT

6. Who can initiate

Any member of the disaster recovery team above, or IT North when leadership is unreachable and delay would worsen impact. All employees should contact a DR team member or IT North in an emergency. Log the decision in a portal ticket immediately.

7. Response steps

1. Declare the incident and open/update a High or Urgent portal ticket titled with “DR”.
2. Protect life and safety; then isolate affected systems if ransomware is suspected.
3. IT North assesses backup currency and recommends Option A or B.
4. Business lead approves the path and any emergency spend; contact key vendors as needed (Appendix A).
5. Recover High-priority systems first (typically connectivity, then servers in priority order, then cloud apps).
6. Validate data integrity; only then resume normal operations.
7. After-action: update Continuity dates, upload evidence, revise this plan if needed.

What to log during a DR event

• What happened and when it started
• Who was involved (business + IT North)
• Option chosen (A or B) and approvals
• Time each critical service was restored

8. Maintenance

DR plan review on the Continuity cadence (typically about every six months). Restore/boot tests on a similar cadence. Backup health checks more often (typically quarterly). Continuity tickets in the portal keep these from slipping. Changes to backups or priority order must be reflected in this document.

Appendix A — Key vendors

Paul Bunyan Communications — ISP
POS vendor — retail support
Microsoft 365 — cloud apps

Appendix B — Evidence & backup proof

Current restore screenshots, test notes, and related files live in the IT North portal under Documents, linked from Continuity task evidence. Last restore test: —. Last backup review: 2026-06-19.

Appendix C — Alternate work locations

Temporary retail ops: warehouse office (sample).

Appendix D — Notification

Jordan notifies staff; IT North posts portal ticket updates.

Appendix E — Insurance

Cyber / property policies on file with company records (sample).

Glossary

• RPO — How much data you can afford to lose (time since last good backup).
• RTO — How long systems can stay down before the business is seriously hurt.
• Failover / failback — Moving to a recovery site or cloud VM, then returning to repaired production hardware.
• Image backup — Full-system backup that can restore OS + apps + data (vs file-only copies).

Review & version

Prepared with IT North (Hibbing, MN). This document is company-specific guidance for systems IT North helps manage. It does not create insurance coverage or guarantee zero downtime.