Intelligent decision making and analysis using fuzzy cognitive maps for disaster recovery planning

Abstract

Reliable, available and accessible IT services are crucial to the success and competitive position of an organisation. With increased use and rapid changes in emerging technologies, organizations require regular review of their disaster recovery plans. Given the complexity of IT systems, it very difficult to ensure correct and complete steps are taken for safeguarding these systems in unforeseen natural or man-made disasters events. A disaster recovery plan for IT systems consists of a large number of steps and processes. This makes it complex to the design, develop and monitor disaster recovery plans. Hence design of such plans is laborious, complex and depends on how big and what types of the organisations are. This task is further complicated due to dependencies that exist in different part of a plan for disaster recovery. This research study proposes Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCM) for analysis of a disaster recovery plan that can be of assistance to Chief Information Officers for risk analysis. Furthermore to improve risk prediction in case of an IT disaster, a Fuzzy Logic (FL) system is developed to improve decision making in such cases by providing an estimate of time delay in case of IT disaster.